Meals At Diz's
by MasterShaper
Summary: Ten teenagers. Five years. And not to forget the uncounted meals at Diz's, which made all the difference in the end. AU. COMPLETE.
1. The Losers

**The Losers**

Everyone called them the Losers. Ever since the very first day when they had all stepped into the hallways of Twilight Town High, the eight of them had been branded as the school's bottom-feeders, and had been christened as such. They were all nice enough kids, and had been friends and acquaintances for a good eight years, ever since they stepped into the small classroom of Twilight Kindergarten, the only nursery school in the sleepy place that named itself as Twilight Town.

Their names were Sora, Roxas, Axel, Demyx, Larxene, Marluxia, Zexion, and Riku. Sora and Demyx were friendly, good-natured guys, but were always easy to intimidate - they had been unofficially crowned as the 'Victims of the Year' for almost every year of their grade school life (with the exception of their third year - another guy named Pence had been locked in a broom closet for an entire school day, and several times at that. The poor sap had later transfered out to the nearby Traverse Town Grade School). Axel and Larxene were pretty much psychotic in their own right, being hyperactive and aggressive most of the time, but in actual fact, were kind and caring people at heart. Marluxia and Zexion had been the quiet ones, never speaking much, and preferring to spend time engrossed in their plants and books, respectively. Then there were Riku and Roxas, the dedicated pranksters of the little clique of 'Losers'. If anything went wrong, those two were the first to be questioned, and, defying all the laws of probability, they had always been the guilty parties for whatever heinous act of mischief that had been committed.

What then caused them all to group together? Well, the common denominator for all of them was probably their aversion to following the popular crowds, and their steadfast resolve to do their own thing. These traits might not have been uncommon, but when you considered that some of them fancied playing with knives, fire, carnivorous plants, oldies music, and books that would have cured insomnia, it just seemed natural for the eight of them to bond together.

So, with such a group of random people banding together, it shouldn't have been a surprise to hear that they were all ostracized from day one in their high school lives. Some people - 'some' in this sentence meaning 'two' - tried to befriend them, and those two girls succeeded. Kairi and Namine, however, were considered to be part of the 'Cool' clique, and weren't shunned as badly as their eight estranged friends... At first, that is...

The bane of their early high school existence was a student clique that picked on them, the self-proclaimed 'Disciplinary Committee' of Twilight Town High, which consisted of three members - Seifer, Rai, Fuu. Between them, Seifer and Rai managed to completely and thoroughly terrorize the seven guys in the Losers, and Fuu made it her business to keep the three Loser girls in line, particularly enjoying tormenting Larxene. The three Disciplinarians were in their Junior year when the Losers were Freshmen, and since they themselves were a bunch of utterly arrogant sadists, they decided to exercise their darker sides on the Losers, and in spades at that.

Life for the Losers in their freshman year was, by all normal points of reference, a living psychological hell. The ten on them could never step into Twilight Town High without some fears of being cornered and 'disciplined', or being picked-on in one or several of innumerable creative methods Seifer, Rai and Fuu had come up with.

Seifer and Rai made sure to give the Royal Flush, also commonly known as the Swirlie, to at least Demyx, and Sora about once a week. Axel, Marluxia, and Zexion were given several good beat-downs on the rare occasions when any of them actually didn't comply with the extortion and threats from the two bullying seniors. Riku and Roxas, on the other hand... The two of them were often blackmailed into doing homework for their three 'masters'. Zexion helped them, being the smart kid that he was, but when mistakes were made - inevitably - Riku and Roxas would find themselves trying to cover up yet another set of bruises from their teachers' eyes.

Even Kairi and Namine were relentlessly harassed after Fuu realized that the other 'cool' girls weren't about to stop her from continuing her sadistic activities, and soon, Namine could often be found kneeling in front of her locker, wordlessly picking up remnants of her drawings that Fuu had torn. Kairi soon after getting into Fuu's targeting sights, started to limit all her socializing to the Losers' group, since Fuu managed to accomplish the feat of humiliating her well and convincingly in front of her entire class. Larxene took all of Fuu's nonsense with barely-suppressed rage, and the only thing preventing her from throttling the red-eyed senior was the oath she had sworn to herself to get a proper education.

After all, expulsion wouldn't have done any good for any of the Losers, whose only goals in life then were to have fun, get some decent schooling, and survive the trials and tribulations of their teenage years. And they all knew that none of their teachers would have dared touched Seifer, Rai, and Fuu even if someone HAD blown the whistle on them. After all, a slap on the wrist was the most you could give to the children of Twilight Town's wealthiest philantrophists. Who knew? Maybe actually giving some proper discipline to those three students might have been sufficient reason for their parents to pull the plug on those neat little annual donations to the school's coffers.

And it was common knowledge that slaps on the wrist for bullies usually led to blows to the faces of victims who squealed on said nasty fellows.

At this point, it might have been of some relevance to note that the Losers shared another common trait - they all had a set of divorced or busy parents. Axel and Larxene's parents never did bother caring for their children much after their spouses buggered off, and the remaining eight had mothers and fathers that provided for them well enough, but whom they could never talk to comfortably, or whom they rarely ever saw due to the relentless rat race called the corporate life. All the ten of them wanted back then was to get out on their own, and they did decide at some point or another that school was the best ticket to that.

But at the dawn of the Losers' sophomore year, things took a turn for the better.

Through a total event of chance, the ten of them came across a place and a group of people that took them in for who they were. Equally as important as the acceptance was the fact that their tormentors were actually driven off once and for all after the fateful day when they bumbled into the place that would later play an important role in all of their lives.

That place was a simple eatery named 'Diz's Coffee Shop'.


	2. Sanctuary

**Sanctuary**

Twilight Town High was old-school, in both the metaphorical and literal senses. Literal in the sense that it had been the place where thousands of teenagers since 1958 had (supposedly)received their high school education, and metaphorical in the sense that it still stuck to the school hours of seven-to-one. Somewhere in the seventies, the Radiant Garden School Board had decided that schools could opt for eight-to-four as their school hours, with a lunch break between twelve-thirty and one in the afternoon. Somehow, the people on Twilight Town High's board of governors had decided to stick with the old hours, and hence subject their school's students to waking up at the ass-crack of dawn.

Which is why, on the 2nd of January 2015, at 6.30 in the morning, ten groggy teenagers could have been seen groggily making their way to school on foot. Given that all of them lived within a five minute walk's distance of said school, all of them made a daily walk to be 'educated' there, regardles of rain or shine.

Though, admittedly, even in Twilight Town, the town of eternally bright skies, there was little light illuminating the sky at 6.30 a.m.

Axel let out a vast, groaning yawn, shuffling his feet on the ground as he walked half-asleep on the sidewalk. Zexion was dreaming in a world of his own as he walked, looking quite like a human panda, and Demyx was uncharacteristically silent, with even the spikes of his mullet drooping. Marluxia, Larxene, Kairi, Namine, and Riku were nibbling on things that they had snatched on the way out of their respective homes, not really tasting the food (except for Marluxia, who woke up early even on holidays, and who was weird in that way). Sora and Roxas were the most awake in the group, but even they were staring at the road ahead of them with slightly glazed-over eyes.

"Today's a _Friday_!" grumbled Riku, as he absent-mindedly ate what was left of his muffin, "Why couldn't they have closed school today?"

"Yesterday was New Year's Day, Riku," Sora pointed out, his normally bubbly voice a sleepy deadpan, "Ergo, yesterday was the holiday."

"But today's just _one_ day!" whined Kairi, stuffing the empty wrapper of her cracker biscuits into one of her pockets, "Why they couldn't give us the day off and let us have an extended weekend, I can't think why..."

"Stuff it, Kairi," snapped Larxene haughtily, "Everyone has to go to school today, so suck it up, put out your upper lip, and take it like a man!"

"Like _you're_ so manly," teased Marluxia, flicking one of Larxene's waving bangs.

"I've got more balls than _you_!" retorted Larxene huffily, as she batted his hand away from her hair, "I could out-man you any day."

"Lie down on the ground, and I'll show you just how masculine I am!"

"My dick's longer, hairier, and sweatier than yours, _pretty boy_!"

"_What did you say?_"

Soon, the two of them had broken into a full-out catfight, completely awake by now. The other eight walked ahead, ignoring the show of violent childishness behind them. Roxas broke the near-silence, as they rounded a corner, and saw their place of torment (also lovingly known as school) looming ahead in the distance.

"So... Do you think they'll be there today?"

"Who?" asked Demyx, sounding absolutely confounded, "Do you mean-"

"Seifer, Rai, and Fuu," replied Zexion sleepily, before Roxas could say anything.

"Maybe not," piped up Namine, in her usual quiet tone, "They might have decided to take the day off, and have a four-day weekend."

"That'll be good news," nodded Riku, "A day without the three of them around would be peaceful beyond relief."

"And of course, Demyx and I would be safe," said Sora happily, now with a visible spring in his step, "Seifer and Rai forgot to give Demyx and I our weekly Swirlies before Thursday, so we'll be safe today!"

Kairi shook her head with a small frown, "You are one strange guy, Sora. I don't think anyone else actually could describe getting their head flushed in a toilet that casually."

"Better not count your chickens before they hatch," pointed out Axel, already showing signs of his awakening hyperactivity through his jerky movements.

Behind them, rapid footfalls sounded as Larxene and Marluxia ran up to the eight of them, both of them sporting several bruises and scratch marks. Larxene wore a smug smile on her face, while Marluxia's expression could have put a thundercloud to shame.

"Who won this time?" asked Axel with a grin, "From your faces, Larxene did."

"Right on the first try, Axel," answered Larxene, flicking a bang behind her left ear, "Are you sure you're not a retard after all?"

"I try."

Marluxia scowled, "She only won because she sucker-punched me."

"All's fair in love and war, Marly," chirped Kairi, as they came up to the school's front doors, "And besides, did you even get in a single hit?"

"I refuse to hit a girl," replied Marluxia airily, as they walked through into the school, only to be thrust into a veriatble ocean of teenagers.

The ten of them slowly regrouped, and began the long trek to their lockers, which were close to the school's gym. By some stroke of luck, all of them had been assigned lockers within that corridor, and in fact, this one trivial thing had been a sort of comfort to them - they would always have a reason to stick together outside of their classes, which was better than getting caught alone by Seifer, Rai, and Fuu. Within ten minutes, they had made it to their lockers, and had remained unmolested so far.

"Looks like those assholes aren't in today!" cheered Demyx, as he spun the combination lock of his locker, "They didn't get us at the front doors."

"Or the cafeteria doors," added Sora.

"You forgot to mention that we were not ambushed near the toilets," Axel chimed in, "And that you two haven't received your weekly swirlies."

Sora and Demyx nodded in agreement, just as the school's office secretary, Mr. Tribal, pranced up to their group.

"Morning, kids!" said the flaxen-haired man, smiling brightly despite it being just 6.45 a.m., "How was your holiday?"

"It was just one day," said Marluxia, "So how could it be a good holiday, Mr. Tribal?"

"Bleeding Christ, call me Zidane already!" the secretary laughed, "At least you didn't have to some here yesterday to type _these_."

With a flourish, he handed Marluxia several sheets of paper, "Your new timetables. Enjoy!"

Before any of them could respond, the imp-like man had vanished into the crowd of student bodies, faster than they could see.

Roxas smirked, "That man's as mad as a hatter."

"So's his wife," joked Kairi. Mr. Tribal's wife was Mrs. Garnet, the head biology teacher at Twilight Town High. She had an unusual interest in dissection, and whenever any of her students entered class, she could inevitably be found toying around with the innards of some animal cadaver, regardless if anatomy was the topic of study for that lesson.

Having her cutting open a rat in front of class while you sat for her exams was also quite disturbing, you had to admit.

"So, here you go," said Marluxia, handing out the timetables, "Zexion, Demyx, Roxas, and Sora are in the same class, and the rest of us are in another class."

"Oh, man!" complained Sora, as he read his timetable, "They gave us Mr. Vexen for Chemistry and Mr. Xigbar for Physics! Those guys give me the creeps!"

Since Mr. Xaldin, the Chemistry and Physics teacher in charge of the sophomore classes, had gotten into a windsurfing accident last week, breaking both of his legs, their timetables had been changed to allow for him to go on sick leave. It seemed that while he recuperated, his two colleagues that usually taught the Senior class would be taking his place temporarily. The change might not have been for the better, however, given that Mr. Vexen was about as eccentric with chemicals as Mrs. Garnet was with her animals, and Mr. Xigbar was actually a rogue pirate, if the rumors were true. After all, the man wore an eye-patch, for goodness sake! And no one new just how Mr. Vexen had managed to melt that table last year...

"Sucks for you," sneered an all-too-familiar voice from behind them, as Sora made his announcement, "Those two dudes could cure insomnia with their teaching."

"Se- Seifer!" squeaked Demyx and Sora, practically in unison, as they shrank back against their respective lockers. Thoughts of a Swirlie-free week evaporated into a feeling of impending doom in their minds.

"And who am I, then? Nobody?" snapped Rai, from beside Seifer. Fuu stepped into view from behind Seifer, her red eyes fixed on the three girls among the Losers.

"You suck," she said simply, glowering at them.

"Um..." Marluxia tried to hide behind Larxene, "Hi?"

"What do you want?" Larxene snapped at the three bullies. With a much softer voice, she whispered to Marluxia, "Told you so, _miss_."

Rai cracked his oversized knuckles, and Fuu took a step towards the Losers. The massive group of students that had filled the corridor had mysteriously disappeared with the arrival of the three bullies on the scene. It was like a chemical reaction - add a little something, and another substance vanishes.

"You know how much we care for you all, right?" Seifer said, cocking his head to one side, his voice sweet enough to be poured on pancakes and eaten, "As members of the Twilight Town High Disciplinary Commitee, it is our sacred duty to make sure that you Losers stay in check."

"And the toilets need to be cleaned, ya know!" guffawed Rai, slapping Seifer on the back, "So this week, it's Demyx's turn to be the mop!"

"Class time," declared Fuu, just a second before the hallway clock struck seven, and the first bell rang.

"Tell Old Lady Quistis that we'll be in late," said Seifer nonchalantly, as he rolled up the sleeves of his expensive, branded sweater, "We were... detained."

Fuu wordlessly walked off in the direction of Miss Quistis' English class, leaving Seifer and Rai in the empty corridor with the ten of them.

"Move over, y'all!" barked Rai, as Roxas, Sora, Axel, Namine, Kairi, Zexion, Marluxia, Larxene, and Riku stood between he and Demyx, "Or I'll be fixing several knuckle sandwiches for breakfast.

On a normal day, the nine of them would have reluctantly stepped back, or stayed in their places and taken a beating before getting their doomed friend grabbed.

That day, Demyx started the series of events which changed everything. Seeing Rai and Seifer starting towards his friends that were shielding him from them, he shoved Zexion out of his way, and bolted.

The other Losers stared at his retreating back for a brief moment, before fleeing after him.

Slack-jawed, Rai and Seifer took a good minute to realize that their 'quarry' had escaped from them, in the direction of the gym. When realization came to them, they dashed after the Losers, outraged.

xxx

"Wait up, Demyx!" called Zexion, as he and the other Losers ran after their panicked companion. He had run towards the gym, and was now trying to decide between entering the gym itself or running on towards his first class of the day, in Mr. Saix's geometry classroom down the hallway.

"Help me decide!" squeaked Demyx, his voice unusually high-pitched, "Gym or geometry?"

"Gym," answered Axel reflexively. After all, if they were going to be late, might as well cut the class outright, hmm?

The sound of Rai and Seifer coming towards them made Demyx finalize his decision. Shoving the gym's door open, he ran in, and was quickly followed by the nine of them.

"They's in the gym, Seifer!" panted Rai, as he saw the gym's door slam shut behind Kairi.

"Go ahead and catch Demyx, Rai!" snapped Seifer, "How they got the guts to try and escape from us, I'll never know."

"Catch them," came Fuu's voice, as she stepped out of Miss Quistis' classroom, "Quistis absent."

"Alright then," replied Rai, as he barreled through the gym's door.

xxx

They had gotten into the gym, but now, the ten of them wondered what they could do. The gym was actually a dead end, in a way - all the windows were fifteen feet above their reach, and the gym's back door was locked. And Mr. Lexeaus the PE teacher was nowhere in sight, leaving them defenceless in the gym.

"What am I gonna do?" wailed Demyx, as he saw the fix they were in, "We're trapped here!"

"Maybe not!" said Riku, as Demyx started to hyperventilate, "Remember that old water tank behind the storage room?"

A light bulb blinked on in Larxene's head, "They moved it under a low window, didn't they?"

"Exactly."

Just as Rai came thundering into the gym, Seifer and Fuu close behind him, the ten of them were already climbing onto the water tank, and hopping out of the open window.

"Get them!" snarled Seifer, as he saw one of Axel's lanky legs disappearing out of the window.

xxx

As soon as Axel touched down outside the gym, landing on the soft green grass that covered the ground of the school compound, Rai's head appeared at the window. The muscle-bound jock looked pissed, and soon enough, the ten Losers found themselves running again, this time, with Rai and Seifer shasing them. Fuu struggled to clear the window, but finally made it out, muttering several choice curses at her two male companions.

"HEY!" went the school's security guard, as he saw the ten students run out of the school, "HOOKY! STUDENTS PLAYING HOOKY!"

As he stared at their retreating backs in bewilderment, something large and heavy struck him in the back, sending him sprawling. Looking up cross-eyed from his fallen position, he saw _three_ more students running after the first ten.

Within minutes, he had called up the office, and notified the teachers about this nonsense. He returned to his security booth, and sipped at the cup of coffee that had gone cold since this morning.

'Students these days,' he thought with a tinge of annoyance, 'No longer value their education.'

xxx

Now, Twilight Town High was located close to the edge of Twilight Town, just a stone's throw away from Timeless River, the natural border between Twilight Town and Midgar City. Right next to the border were several dense clusters of ancient buildings that predated Twilight Town High by at least twenty years, and most of which were shops that had been patronized by three generations of customers.

If you had looked at Metronome Street that morning, you would have seen thirteen students very blatantly playing hooky, running down the considerably empty roads as though hellhounds were on their trails.

"Where to?" huffed Axel, as they ran for their lives, Seifer, Fuu, and Rai hot on their heels.

"Anywhere that they can't pick on us!" shouted Demyx, now in a state of panic.

"There!" yelled Larxene, as she saw a shop with a familiar name that she had heard of before, "That place should do!"

"Diz's Coffee Shop?" asked Riku, bewildered.

"Who cares? Into the shop!" snapped Roxas.

Demyx reached the door first, and practically lifted it off its hinges as he slammed into the door. He yanked the door open, and promptly tripped over the wooden plank that stood six inches off the floor, at the door's threshold. Axel helped him up, and all of them were soon within the shop, faster than you could say, 'Beat the shit out of you."

Before any of them could regain their breath of their senses, several chilly voices cut through the air.

"Larxene? What are you doing here?"

"Axel? What the fuck are you doing out of school?"

"Zexion? Riku? You two are in deep shit..."

Larxene, Axel, Zexion, and Riku went pale, as they looked up to the people who had spoken.

Larxene was round-eyed as she sputtered out some nonsensical noises at a short, blond woman in a blue suit who was glowering at her.

Axel, likewise, was babbling incoherently at a redheaded man with a ponytail, who was garbed in a rumpled suit and who was brandishing a sparking baton in his right hand.

Zexion and Riku were cowering in a corner, as they looked up fearfully at a man decked out in a black leather outfit, with long silver hair.

"Mom, I cna explain..."

"Um, Dad? Could you please put away the EMR?"

"Dad, we can explain this..."


	3. Sanctuary 2

**Sanctuary 2**

The two Turks named Reno and Elena stared at their children, as did the man named General Sephiroth, who was doing the same save for the fact that he was glaring at his twin sons. Elena was toying with her handgun somewhere inside her suit, and Reno was fiddling with his activated EMR in one hand. For Sephiroth, he settled with staring daggers at his two truant-playing offspring. The other six teenagers present remained silent, as did the other three men seated behind Reno, Elena, and Sephiroth.

Elena cleared her throat, while smiling sweetly at her daughter, "Now, now, Larxene. Is there a reason or three that I shouldn't open fire on you right here? Last I knew, today was a school day for you lot."

"Mom," Larxene swallowed hard, "We were being-"

"Unruly, rule-breaking, truant-playing students?" snapped Sephiroth, earning himself a powerful clout upside the head from an angry Elena. The long haired soldier glared at her, but backed down when he saw her handgun out of her suit holster. He'd been on the receiving end of one of Elena's super nasty bitch fits before, and it wasn't an experience he'd be happy to repeat.

"Where was I again?" asked Elena pleasantly, cocking the gun's hammer. Reno sighed audibly, removing a box of cigarettes from his suit pocket.

"Why they are here today? And at this time?" the redheaded man said, lighting a cigarette with his sparking EMR, "Hurry up with it, Elena! Axel's ass is gonna make its acquaintance with my buddy EMR here."

"Sodomy's a crime, Axel," said Sephiroth, eyebrow raised, "You'd be persecuted for child molestation."

Axel cheeped in panic, and passed out on the floor, just as Seifer, Rai, and Fuu barged in through the front door. The terrible trio were panting and perspiring, having run past the coffee shop several times before seeing that their victims were hiding inside, courtesy of a well-cleaned display window in the shopfront.

"There they are!" shouted Seifer, causing Rai and Fuu to step forward, cracking their knuckles menacingly.

Only then did the three bullies notice the Turks and Sephiroth, who were looking at them like something you would scrape off the sole of your shoe. Seifer took a nervous step backwards, as did Fuu and Rai when they realized who they'd run into. And to add insult to injury, the two standing Turks looked particularly pissed off.

"Um, I think we got in the wrong shop," stuttered Seifer, backtracking towards the door, "So we'll be just leav-"

"You toerags are Heidegger, Scarlet, and Palmer's kids, aren't you?" asked a man garbed entirely in white, from where he had been seated behind a huge, bald Turk who wore a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

"Yes," answered Fuu, seemingly without any fear, "Scarlet is my mother."

President Rufus Shinra stood up at his seat, cocking an eyebrow at the red eyed teen, "So what should I tell her, hmm? That her daughter is out playing truant and," he sneaked a glance at the Losers, "Picking on other students?"

"It's not like that, sir," stammered Seifer, while Rai broke out into a sweat, "They were troublemakers, you see, and-"

"Shut'cha pie hole!" said Reno waspishly, causing Seifer to cringe, his cigarette falling onto the floor where he promptly stepped it out, "You idiots are every bit as pathetic as your parents! Now get out of my sight, before I go apeshit on ya!"

The words had no sooner left his mouth, when Seifer, Rai, and Fuu fled out of the coffee shop's front door. Through the display window, all who were present in the coffee shop watched as the three teens ran pell-mell away from their location, towards Steamboat Willie Avenue. Before anyone could say or do anything, a calm, masculine voice spoke up.

"Kindly put away your weapons, people. You know I don't like fights in here!"

Elena begrudgingly stowed away her handgun in her suit, while Reno turned off his EMR and snapped it into its compressed form, keeping the entire assembly in his suit. The two seated Turks and Rufus Shinra issued brief words of greeting to the man who had spoken, while Sephiroth merely took a seat, looking disgruntled. All nine conscious teenagers present there whirled about to see who the speaker was, and there he was, wiping the counter with a rag. He looked at them with an intense stare, just as Axel came around, sending Axel into a fit of panicked babbling once the spiky-haired redhead noticed the man's scrutiny.

The man appeared to be a tad past his mid-life years, if the white streaks in his long blond hair were any indication of his age. He wore a pair of metal-framed spectacles over his light blue eyes, and had a neatly trimmed moustache as well as beard. He looked up from his cleaning to visually appraise the newcomers, with a small smile.

"Tseng, isn't it a school day today?" the old man asked, balling-up the rag and throwing it into a small, water-filled bucket by the side of the counter.

"It is," the black-haired Turk replied, with a curt nod, "Though why they are here, I can't say."

"Hooky players, obviously," sniffed Rufus Shinra, while Elena, Sephiroth, and Reno glared at their respective children, once again sending said teens cowering into the corners of the shop.

"If those idiots were after me, I'd play hooky, too," said the proprietor primly, "Especially since those same idiots have parents that work in positions high enough in Shinra to kick up some indecent shit if their kids got ruffled."

"I'll be seeing to that," said Rufus, waving a hand dismissively, "They've caused enough trouble already in the company. And now..."

The blond president smirked at the coffee shop's proprietor, "How about some coffee?"

"Hang on a sec, will ya? Just got here."

The old man shuffled out of sight into a small room behind the counter, and presto! The ten teens found themselves being glared at by the Shinra employees, once again.

"Bullies, huh?" to say that Elena looked furious would be an understatement.

"You should have-" Tseng started, but was interrupted by Elena.

"Beaten the hell out of them!"

Everyone in the room stared at Elena in bewilderment. The female Turk realized this, and quickly defended her statement.

"Hey, I whoop Scarlet all the time!"

"But Scarlet can't come over and mess with your life," pointed out Rufus, "She can mess _theirs_ up easily enough."

Elena sat down with a huff, "Alright then. You scumbags get back to school!"

"No. By all means - stay here for the day."

The adults now stared at the old man, who had reappeared with a large tray of coffee, buttered toast, and boiled eggs. He grinned impishly at them, and set the tray down in front of them.

He turned to the teens, "I've been running this shop since the seventies, and your parents were definitely the biggest hooky players Twilight Town High has ever seen."

"DIZ!" shrieked Elena, "HOW COULD YOU?!"

Reno merely grunted as he lit a fresh cigarette, while Sephiroth tried to burn Diz into a crisp using his patented 'Glare of Death'.

"Now, now, Elena," said Diz, wagging a finger at her as he would at a naughty child, "These young people are old enough to decide for themselves if they want to continue with their education. And besides..."

He rolled his eyes, "It's _Friday_. Let them have the day off - they can catch up with lost work over the weekend."

Elena tried to speak up, but was cut-off by Tseng.

"Let it be, Elena."

She angrily poured herself a cup of steaming coffee, and settled for ferociously tearing into a slice of toast instead of further terrorizing her daughter and her delinquent friends. Visibly relaxed, all the other Shinra employees started digging into the large spread laid out before them.

The old man, who was apparently named Diz, turned to the teens (who by the way, were still huddled together in a corner), and spoke to them in a puzzled voice.

"Why are you all piled up there? Get up and get seated, will you? Do you want something?"

"The coffee here is good," added Reno, blowing several smoke rings into the air, "Heck, _anything_ here is good."

"For today, I'll even give you kids freebies," offered Diz, moving back behind the counter, "So what will it be?"

xxx

Twenty minutes later, the Shinra employees were all gone, having left for work at the Shinra Headquarters, in the heart of congested Midgar City (but not before threatening the ten teens with several creative tortures and punishments if they played hooky again). The ten teenagers had taken to sitting around a large round table near the counter, and were currently doing their homework, of all things. At Diz's suggestion, they had decided to skip school that day, and catch up on late assignments during the free time.

Besides, Diz said that he would have a word with Mr. Xemnas about their absence today. Without having to worry about their names being blacklisted by Twilight Town High's sadistic disciplinary teacher made things much better, obviously. Mr. Xemnas was feared by everyone in their school, especially since he took particular pleasure in dishing out corporal punishment to wayward students. His female counterpart, Mrs. Lani, was an equally nasty teacher, who dealt with misbehaving female students in her own ways - which were rumored to be just as bad as Xemnas'.

"So, how did you know our parents?" asked Axel, as he took a bite out of his toast. His dad had been right - the grub at this place was damned tasty.

"And their hooky?" added Riku, looking up from his English notes.

Diz, who had been washing the Shinra employees' dishes behind the counter, paused in his work for a moment, before answering.

"Well, I _have _been running this establishment for thirty-seven years now..." he waved a hand to gesture at the black-and-white tiled floor, wooden chairs and tables topped-off with marble, and curling stencil font on his front display window. The fans on the ceiling were VERY grimy, and the fuse-box in the corner was covered in cobwebs. Upon closer inspection, the glasses and serving dishes were also quite visibly aged - the enamel plates were yellowed, and the glasses were _actual _glass, and not hardened plastic.

"Back when I opened this shop, Midgar was a little town, and Shinra Incorporated was little more than an electricity power company. Now they've got SOLDIER and all kinds of other nifty lil' operations running under them."

"You opened this place in 1978?" asked Zexion, his visible eyebrow raised, "Or did you take over after that?"

"Smart lad," said Diz, starting to dry the dishes, "But no, actually - I didn't take over this business as per se. I started this coffee shop with a friend of mine - Yen Sid."

"_Yen Sid_?!" Sora exclaimed, "_The_ Yen Sid?!"

"I think there is only _one_ Yen Sid, so that must be him," replied Diz with a laugh, "Yes, we split our partnership somewhere in 1988, and he went on to open that fast food franchise... McMoogles, I believe it was called."

"Yes, Yen Sid is the CEO of McMoogles," nodded Roxas, "But you still haven't answered Axel's question - how did you come to know their parents?"

Diz, now finished with the dishes, walked around the counter and pulled up a chair at their table. Sitting down in between Marluxia and Demyx, he poured himself a cup of coffee, from the jug that he had served them with.

"Elena, Reno, and Sephiroth started going to Twilight Town High in... 1986, I think. Back then, there was this real asshole of a calculus teacher. He was called... Mr. Ansem. Yes, Mr. Ansem. So one day, Reno decides to put a stink bomb or three under Mr. Ansem's chair."

"My _dad_ did _what_?!" Axel sputtered, as he choked on his coffee, more amazed by the fact that his father had tried to prank a teacher, this amazement superseding that regarding his father studying calculus.

"He placed several stink bombs under the lining of Ansem's chair, which all went off beautifully when the old bugger sat down on them," confirmed Diz, smiling, "And of course, ol' Ansem knew immediately who the culprit was!"

"Oh dear," said Marluxia, partially because he was listening to Diz, and also because he had misspelled 'the' on his essay.

"Oh dear indeed! Reno was soon running for his hide from Ansem, and of course, Elena, Sephiroth, Rude, Tseng, and Rufus took the opportunity to escape, and joined him on the run."

"They ran out of school just like that?" asked Sora, his eyes the size of dinner plates.

"Well, they were all top of their classes, so no one was gonna bother them much for missing school," Diz replied, "I'll have you know that Elena was the top student for English that year, and Rude has held the highest grade for a Physics final since 1990. Tseng made salutatorian, and one of their current colleagues, James Hojo, made valedictorian."

"The bald guy was Rude, right?" asked Larxene, as she wiped a crumb off her notes.

"Yes."

Roxas burst into giggles at Diz's answer, and everyone turned to look at him in confusion.

"It's just... It..." Roxas was struggling to speak clearly, "The top physics grade record is held by a certain _Rudolph _Jackson."

"How can such a bad-ass Turk like Rude have a pansy name like Rudolph?!" said Axel, seemingly bewildered.

"We are getting sidetracked again," said Zexion in a sharp voice, "So could we please get back on topic?"

"Zexy, you're sooo anal..."

"Shut it, Kairi."

"Anyway," Diz went on, "Those six ran out of school, and Ansem actually followed them! So they ran onto this street, and just as they got to my doorstep, the school bell rang. So technically, they _weren't_ playing hooky anymore!"

"Oh my," said Namine, wide eyed, "That's... lucky..."

"You bet it was, darling. One minute they're standing out there, hearing the bell ring, next second, they're all in here because Mr. Ansem didn't give two hoots that the bell had gone, and was _still_ pursuing them!"

"So that's how you met our parents?" asked Riku, with a grin.

"Sure. Hid them in the pantry and told Ansem that they escaped out the back door into the alley. Old bastard never suspected me of hiding them in here."

"You seem surprisingly tolerant towards truant playing students," noted Marluxia, as he grabbed the last piece of toast.

"Bah! A little hooky never hurt anyone before! Hell, all you _teachers_ have their own stories, too!"

"Next thing I know, you'll be pulling out stories about them as well," smirked Demyx.

"Stories? I'll show you _pictures_! Gimme a sec!"

Diz stood up and marched over to the counter. Reaching under the old and stained wooden counter-top, he pulled out a large, leather-bound album and walked back to the table. Plopping the large book down on the table, he drew out a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket, and took off his metal spectacles, then put the bifocals on. All in all, he now looked even more like somebody's grandfather, but with more blond hair than white.

"My collection of photos since 1978!" he declared proudly, "Your parents and teachers included!"

The ten teens let out interested replies, and huddled closer around the seated Diz as he opened the album, and flipped through its age-yellowed pages.

"Hmm... Not yet..." the old man said, flipping past pictures of some shops, people, and other random shots, "Ah, there it is! I give you the class of 1981, with some of your older teachers in it!"

The picture in concern showed only seven teens, standing around Diz. The coffee shop in the picture looked the same as it did presently.

"Umm, there are only seven kids in the shot," observed Kairi.

"Well, I don't bother about those who don't come here, do I?" answered Diz, "After all, those that come here are those that I know."

"So in this picture we have Xemnas, Xaldin, Xigbar, Vexen, Lexeaus, Saix, and Luxord," stated Diz, pointing out each face as he rattled off the names, "Luxord was the only one who didn't eventually become a teacher - he went into banking, and runs a casino on the side. Vexen and Lexeaus did some research before going into teaching, while the other four worked here and there before settling for teaching."

"Dude, Mr. Vexen had funky hair!" said Axel excitedly, pointing at the spiky-haired image of his current chemistry teacher, "Finally, a teacher who _once_ understood the beauty of spiky hair!"

"You're just bitter because Mr. Xemnas washed out your gel once when he was pissed off," snorted Namine, "I'm more surprised that Mr. Saix wore glasses! And what about Mr. Xemnas' mohawk?!"

Diz let them gawk at the picture for a while, before speaking up, "Your teachers _are_ human too, you know. They were all once young like you, so go easy on them, alright? They aren't too bad once you get to know them."

"So, let's move on to your parents' picture now... Class of 1985, I think..."

Flip, flip. Momentary pause at the picture of a naked woman holding a beer keg in front of 'the goods'. Flip, flip. Bingo.

"That's _mom_?!" Larxene thrilled, seeing Elena's picture from 1986.

"Dude, my dad ROCKS!" Axel cheered.

"Whoa, dad!" exclaimed Riku, while Zexion stared bug-eyed at their father's picture as an eighteen-year-old teenager that was into punk rock.

The picture, looking slightly newer than the one showing their older teachers, showed eight teens standing around a seated Diz, who was wearing sunglasses. Tseng and Rufus were standing in the corner of the photograph, their clothes immaculately neat. In the center of the picture, just behind Diz, were Elena and Reno. Elena was in a tank top that looked tight enough to have been spray-painted on, and wore her hair in two trailing bangs much like Larxene did now. Reno had his ponytail and spikes, and was wearing a ripped jacket with the barely-readable words 'FUK THE FEDS' on its back (the words were visible cause he was mooning the camera at the second that shot was taken). Rude was standing in a position that was reminiscent of military 'at ease' standing next to a boy with spectacles and long black hair. At the other end of the picture from Tseng and Rufus were a guy that was obviously Sephiroth in a sleeveless hoodie and with chains sticking out of his pockets, and a guy with a wide smile holding a stuffed cat in his arms, said feline wearing a little cape and a crown.

"Rufus, Tseng, Reno, Elena, Rude, Hojo, Sephiroth, and Reeve," said Diz with a small smile, "The kids that brightened this place up so much even after Yen Sid abandoned it for _burgers_."

None of the teens present voiced out the fact that they did like McMoogles' burgers (especially the 'Grilled Pom Pom' burgers. Yummy...), and instead focused on seeing Axel's, Larxene's, and Riku as well as Zexion's parents.

"Axel, I know this might sound creepy, but your dad has one awesome butt in this picture," Kairi giggled.

Axel made some retching noises, and mimed puking onto the table, "I don't know whether to take that as a compliment to the genes I got from him or to be disgusted thoroughly."

"Shocked, huh?" asked Diz, "Bet you never thought that your parents actually did some wild shit back in their day, didja? They were cool then, and they are cool now."

"Who are the other two?" asked Namine, pointing at Hojo and Reeve, "How did they come to know you?"

"Hojo and Reeve started coming here after seeing the others come in here one day," answered Diz, "And since then, they've been regular customers. Hojo comes at night before I close mostly, and Reeve comes at least once a week, during lunch hour. After all, his 'Hello Cait' company requires quite a bit of his time."

"'Hello Cait'?" said Sora incredulously, "The soft toy corporation?"

"Yup, the one which squashed Mashimaro and Snoopy once it gained enough corporate muscle. Reeve started it, and even the military gets some androids from him, for god-knows-what. My bet is espionage - that cat in the picture was the original Cait Sith, built by Reeve and Hojo as a science fair project during their senior year."

Diz looked thoughtful for a second, "Though if I recall correctly, the original Cait Sith could only say 'hello', 'goodbye', and 'pig-fucker' due to an incident while Reeve and Hojo were recording sentences for its speech patterns. Something about Reno, Tseng, and an exploding Bunsen Burner, apparently."

Needless to say, all thoughts of homework and assignments were soon forgotten, and eleven people got lost in pictures and stories of times that had long since passed.


	4. Photosynthesis

**Photosynthesis**

_Photosynthesis is a metabolic pathway in plants that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. The absence of light would prevent photosynthesis from happening, and plants would instead then go through the Calvin Cycle, a light-independent reaction cycle._

- Extract from the Sophomore-year lesson notes of Mrs. Garnet Tribal nee Alexandros, Biology teacher at Twilight Town High School

xxx

Marluxia Ferguson was NOT gay. He didn't harbor secret crushes for any guys he saw, nor did he fantasize about grabbing hold of Roxas over in the locker room showers and thereafter ravishing the (very obviously) gay teen's body in oh-so-many unthinkable, and deliciously carnal ways. After all, only a blind fool would remain ignorant of the fact the Roxas was about as straight as an exponential curve - the way he ogled Axel when they got together at the seaside was indication enough of the blond's sexual orientation, Marluxia thought. Honestly, he didn't think that pink was a color meant only for women - it was a nice color, and he couldn't help it that he'd been born to grow up with a shaggy mop of pinkish hair that absolutely refused to submit to the ministrations of all manner of combs, gels, and hairsprays. And besides, some of his favorite flowers were also pink!

Really, is it that GAY for a guy to like pink and flowers? In his humble opinion, it was all a whole steaming crap-load of chauvinistic nonsense. He _was_ straight, and if any one of those naysayers had gotten the chance to take a peek into his head during those days when he was at the seaside... Lets just say that all notions of thought linking the words 'Marluxia' and 'Gay', or 'Marluxia' and 'Faggot', or any other possible Marluxia and homosexual related phrases would be sent flying out of the window faster than a pigeon with its backside on fire.

And of course, if any of his spank bank fantasies ever got leaked out to the general public's ears, his reputation as a homosexual, flower-sniffing faggot would have instantly gone up in flames, which would probably have resulted in a temporarily-happy Marluxia, and a supremely-enraged Larxene that would have been the cause of the temporary nature of his happiness at no longer being branded as a gay dude. After all, if a person found out that someone had been eagerly whacking-off to mental images of you in nearly every sex position that had been archived in the Kama Sutra, it would have been perfectly understandable for said person to go out and exact 'vengeance' upon the aforementioned guilty party.

'Vengeance', of course, could be anything ranging from slander campaigns, vandalism, torture, or hot, monkey sex that resulted in broken beds or humiliating trips to the emergency room. It really was up to the people involved, ultimately.

At this point of time, it should be made known that almost everyone Marluxia regularly socialized with were aware of that trivial little fact (that he was severely and hopelessly crushing on Larxene), save for Namine and Larxene herself. To him, it looked like a desperate uphill struggle to try and win a place in Larxene's heart, no matter how small and non-existent said organ might have been - at least, that was if Axel's nickname of 'Heartless Bitch' rang true for the dishy blond with antennae-like bangs whom he'd harbored a secret crush on since he had grown old enough to realize that cooties were in fact evil things that prevented guys (and gals) from having a good ol' horizontal romp.

Somehow, though he had spent just over a year (since he turned fourteen) trying to show Larxene that he had some feelings for her, the sweet sadist that haunted his dreams (even the wet ones) remained oblivious to his efforts. He nonetheless persisted, like the stalwart knights he so often read about, hoping that one day, his perseverance would be rewarded with the sweet taste of success.

Which is why, three years later, as a seventeen-year-old Marluxia comfortably sat opposite her at a small side-table in Diz's Coffee Shop at eight p.m. on a Friday night, the both of them sharing a chocolate malted with two straws, he decided that maybe, just maybe, all his patience had paid-off in the end, leaving him with more than just the mere _taste_ of success.

_Three years earlier_

_A fifteen-year-old Marluxia sat quietly in a corner at Diz's Coffee Shop at eight-thirty on a Saturday morning, trying to complete his sophomore-level Algebra homework and at the same time, catch a rerun of the last episode of his favorite cartoon series, 'Donald Duck's Dastardly Deeds'. Fortunately, he had arrived at Diz's shop early enough to get the seat with the best view of the ancient black-and-white television set, with aluminum foil wrapped around its 'rabbit ears' antenna to improve the considerably bad reception - according to Diz, it was the construction of a high-rise office block building about a hundred yards away from his shop that was to be blamed for any signal disruptions. He was somehow mentally-juggling the ideas of balancing a logarithmic equation and Donald Duck lighting a stick of dynamite to demolish a building, when the television abruptly changed channels to a women's talk show. Currently, it seemed, the topic of discussion was a debate regarding the differences between tampons and sanitary napkins, or some good shit like that._

_"What the hell?!" he cursed, as he unwittingly became more enlightened about the drawbacks of wearing tampons. To add salt to the wound, he had also forgotten just what the heck his algebra problem was to be solved, and whether or not the moronic Donald Duck would succeed in demolishing that building - he had missed the original showing of said ending to the series._

_"They're called 'feminine products', Marly," snickered an all-too-familiar voice that sent shivers down his spine._

_Mind you, these weren't shivers of horror and trepidation, but rather, the kind of shivers a masochistic and kinky-minded person would get if they saw their significant other approaching them with a whip and some chocolate syrup while they were handcuffed rather sexily to a bed._

_No one ever did claim that Marluxia was innocent - most people just left his level of pervertedness to be open to interpretation, while they harped on his alleged bent orientation._

_"Larxene?" he asked dumbly, all thoughts of algerba, cartoons, and menstruation momentarily forgotten._

_Larxene, wearing a sleeveless tank top and cargo pants, rolled her eyes at his response, "No, it's me, Jesus-H-Johnnycake Christ. Of course I'm Larxene, dumbass!"_

_"Now, now Larxene," interrupted Diz, in a soothing tone of voice, "There is no need to lay such a heavy bombardment upon young Malry here so early in the morning. Can I get you something?"_

_"I'm just waiting here for Namine," she replied, flicking a stray lock of hair behind her left ear, causing Marluxia to blink owlishly without realizing it, "We were supposed to head over to Disney Road to run an errand or a dozen for her mum - Sora and Roxas will be meeting us there. My mum bummed a ride on us, and so that's two shopping lists we've got."_

_Diz brightened up at the mention of Namine and Larxene going shopping along Disney Road, "Would it be too much to ask for you to get me some stuff?"_

_Larxene smirked, and dramatically threw a hand in front of her face, while theatrically moaning, "Oh, it's too much for me to bear!"_

_"No problem, Diz. Nami's got this big-ass basket that... Ah, she's here!"_

_Indeed, at that moment, said diminutive girl with good artistic skills and a soft-spoken nature walked into the coffee shop, carrying a basket which could only be described as huge. It possessed a lid that could be sealed by means of several clasps, and a sturdy-looking handle. Seemingly undersized in comparison to the monstrous wicker construct were a pair of wheels, apparently added to make the task of lugging the large basket around easier._

_"Damn, Namine," Diz whistled appreciatively, "That's one huge basket you've got there."_

_She smiled shyly, "Mum wove it several years ago. It's quite solid."_

_"So, enough bullshitting already!" snapped Larxene, bounding up to the counter, "Your shopping list, Diz?"_

_"Here it is," answered the elderly shopkeeper, handing her a piece of yellowed paper, "Be sure to get the coffee beans from Seeny Mohamed's shop if you can - that man has the best beans along Disney Road."_

_"Fuckin' A, Diz. Ciao!" Larxene called over her shoulder, as she took over carrying the currently empty basket, and left the shop, Namine just behind her._

_Marluxia, meanwhile, had been unconsciously staring at Larxene the entire time she had been talking to Diz. He longed to get close to her, to be able to get cozy with her, to feel her skin beneath his fingertips... That is, if she didn't kill him first. With a sigh, he realized that she was no longer in sight, having walked round the corner and turning into Steamboat Willie Avenue, on the way to Disney Road._

_"You've got it bad, Marluxia," came Diz's voice from behind him, sounding amazingly calm and yet, amused at the same time._

_"Got what bad?"_

_"You're so head-over-heels for that Larxene, I'd say that you'd make a damned fine slinky spring if I pushed you down the stairs now."_

_"Wha- what?!" Marluxia yelped, his eyes looking as though they would be popping out of his head at any moment, "We- we're just... Friends! That's all!"_

_"Please," laughd Diz, "I've seen nearly three generations of teenagers in love sitting in this shop, and you don't look much different from most of them!"_

_"I'm not in love with her!"_

_"Denial is not just a river in Egypt, my dear Marluxia," riposted Diz airily, "And lovesickness is a disease which has denial syndrome as a very obvious sympthom."_

_Marluxia sank back into his seat, feeling the chair's rigid wooden-framed back as well as hard, cold marble seat pressing up against his back. He looked over to see Diz not watching him at all - the man was busy reading the newspapers and sipping from a cup which held some steaming fluid that he suspected was only partially coffee._

_"So what can I do?" sighed the defeated teen, running a hand through his thick mop of hair, "She probably thinks I'm a fag, anyways..."_

_"'Probably' being the operative word in your statement, Marluxia," said Diz, not looking up from the news, "And in fact, she does notice you - and in more detail than she would a friend, to boot."_

_"You're shittin' me."_

_"What I said is about as true as my mother's marriage was - it was dad who cheated on her."_

_"I don't know whether or not to take your advice seriously now."_

_Diz swallowed a mouthful of his mysterious steaming drink, "Well, if I were in your shoes, I'd tell her how I felt."_

_"How?"_

_"That's something you'll have to find out for yourself, kiddo. Come over, and bring the photo album here," said Diz, adjusting his reading glasses so that they sat more comfortably on the bridge of his nose._

_Marluxia wordlessly brought the album over, and stood in silent confusion next to Diz as the old man flipped through the album's pages._

_"There, the picture I was looking for. Take a look."_

_He followed Diz's instructions, and soon saw two teens next to each other - a spiky-haired blond guy, and a slender girl with long, brown hair that cascaded down her back._

_Diz pointed at the guy, then the girl, speaking their names as he did so, "That's Cloud Strife, and his ex-girlfriend Aerith Gainsborough. Sound familiar?"_

_A light bulb blinked on in Marluxia's head, as he recognized the name of one of the two teenagers whose picture lay before him, "Cloud runs 'Strife's Delivery Services', doesn't he?"_

_Indeed, for the residents of Twilight Town, the sight of Cloud zipping in and out of traffic on Fenrir, his monstrously modified motorbike, was not an unfamiliar one. The man had been delivering packages and other stuff for any paying customers for about seven years already, and had never let anyone down. In fact, his record was making a delivery so fast, the ice-cream cake in concern hadn't melted nor been damaged by the time it arrived at its recipient's home, mere minutes after it had been picked up by Cloud.  
_

_"Yup," nodded Diz, his eyes lowered to gaze sadly at the photograph, already faded with age, "But do you know WHY he's still single till today? The reason why he never did marry that lady Tifa, who runs the bar called 'Tifa's Seventh Heaven'?"_

_"No..."_

_"Well, Cloud and Aerith were sweethearts since their days at Twilight Town High, and were seemingly all set to get hitched once they graduated and got themselves steady jobs. Given that they were together since they were both sixteen, it wasn't a surprise for any of us who knew the two of them."_

_Diz closed his eyes, looking as if he was fighting back the urge to cry, "Then came the accident..."_

_"Accident?" Marluxia asked, a feeling of pity materializing in the pit of his stomach. It was almost as if he knew what the gist of Diz's next words was going to be._

_"After their graduation, Cloud got a place as a SOLDIER trainee, while she went to work under Professor James Hojo in Shinra's Science Division. To be specific, she was working on a project called M.I.L."_

_A hint of familiarity was evident in Marluxia's voice, "You don't mean Project Mother-In-Law, do you?"_

_Project Mother-In-Law was one of Shinra's pet projects that never did achieve success - the details on the projects' research had been classified, though the public knew of its name. Till today, no one outside of Shinra's Science Division knew exactly what Project M.I.L. involved, or if actual mother-in-laws had somehow been used for experimentation.  
_

_A tear trickled down Diz's cheek, "That's the one. She... She was working on a team that researched the effects of Mako on nearby living organisms."_

_"Mako? That old energy source?" Marluxia nearly couldn't believe his ears - Mako had been banned worldwide as an energy source after the full extent of its uses' side effects became known. Professor Hojo had discovered that a strange type of radiation from Mako could cause severe mutations, or in the milder cases, poisoning and other types of illnesses. Apparently, some people had died before the United Nations had decided to ban the usage of Mako as an energy source.  
_

_"She and three other scientists - Rikku, Yuna, and Paine, who are also in my album somwhere - were at the Gongaga Mako reactor running their research, when something went wrong - a back-flow valve or something malfunctioned. Before any of them knew it, Mako mist was clouding the air in the reactor, streaming out of a Mako refining machine," Diz sniffed, wiping his eyes with a large handkerchief, "Aerith... She knew that if the Mako mist got out into the environment, some big problems might have started for everyone else out there."_

_"So she triggered the emergency fail-safes, and hermetically-sealed the entire reactor from the inside. By the time Hojo and his biohazard team got there twenty minutes later, the entire reactor had been locked-down, and the four women inside had been killed by the toxic Mako mist. Hojo reckons it must have been a slow and painful death - he claims that their lungs and other affiliated tissues would have started being corroded away first, before their nervous system shut down seconds before they finally died."_

_Diz blew his nose into his hanky, still crying softly, "Those girls never stood a chance in there..."_

_Marluxia could taste the bile rising in his throat as he remembered Mr. Xaldin's lectures on Mako, and also its gaseous form, Mako mist. __The mist was a by-product of Mako refining, and even though all of Shinra's Mako reactors had been shut down for nearly ten years, trace amounts of the foul gas could still be found in Gaia's atmosphere... Properties-wise, __Mako mist was a strange gas, being somehow capable of acting as a strong corrosive agent, and yet, at the same time, causing mutation in those organic tissues that it didn't eat at. If it came into contact with even the slightest amount of liquid water, it would form a colorless, odorless, and tasteless fluid that caused chronic Mako poisoning when it contacted even skin, said condition being incurable even by extensive blood transfusions which washed-out all the Mako from a patient's blood. Somehow, the Mako particles would self-replicate after changing from a gaseous state to a liquid one, and the extremely mutagenic properties of Mako enabled those particles to pass through all bodily tissues within microseconds, even during a thorough blood transfusion procedure.  
_

_And even Marluxia knew that human lungs were moist, warm environments that would have been most conducive to the condensation of Mako mist...  
_

_"Poor Aerith died and Cloud never got to ask for her hand in marriage. But that's a freak incident, after all..."_

_Diz, having dried his eyes, looked at Marluxia sadly, "If you don't tell Larxene how you feel, and keep putting it off, you might soon find that your opportunity of doing so has been removed from any means you're capable of. It might not take a Mako reactor malfunction, but if you wait too long... I'm sure you know what I mean..."_

_"Diz, how should I tell her? You know what she's like..."_

_"Search your feelings, Marluxia, and find your answer you will."  
_

_"It's not that easy..."_

_"Nothing in life is easy, Marluxia," shrugged Diz, dry-eyed now, as he sipped from his mug, right before he saw a particularly shocking article in the papers, and spat out the liquid he'd just sipped up, "Mother of madness!"_

_"What happened?" Marluxia queried, as he saw the newspapers turn a murky shade of amber that implied either very diluted coffee, or some form of alcoholic beverage.  
_

_"Mega hypersale in the Monstro Market right now!" exclaimed Diz excitedly, "Gotta get there before noon - these sales come once in a blue moon!"_

_"How long will you be gone?" asked Marluxia, glancing at the clock - it read nine-twelve a.m._

_"I'll have to lock-up shop. Let yourself out the back door if you wanna leave, and lock it behind you," instructed Diz, as he pulled on his battered windbreaker, "I'll close the shop for now, but you could let your friends in if they come."_

_"Oh, right."_

_Just as Diz was passing out through the front door, Marluxia called after him, "What was that you were drinking just now?"_

_"Irish Coffee, kid! Try some if you want to - it's piss-warm by now!"_

_Marluxia tried a sip of the 'Irish Coffee', and nearly balked - it seemed that Diz had liberally laced his coffee with some potent whiskey, and had topped-off the misture with some cream. Swearing an oath to himself never to touch Diz's personal cocktails again, he sat down again to do his homework, and only then did he notice that the television was still on, and that the ending of the women's talk show debate was being shown._

_A woman with a smile wide enough to swallow a frisbee was speaking to the camera, "And that's why I prefer tampons!"_

xxx

_Larxene was lying down stomach-first on her bed, and reading her mother's age-worn copy of Tetsuya Nomura's epic novel 'Final Fantasy', when she first heard the sound of some poor fool trying to get into the garden. There was the tell-tale squeak as the person opened the front gate, and then the steady crunch of gravel as the person walked up the driveway. She smirked to herself, as she heard the sound of the somebody's footsteps on the wooden patio - boy, was whoever it was in for a surprise..._

_Predictably enough, there were some clanking noises downstairs, followed by several loud shrieks that were definitely feminine in origin. Soon, she heard the sound of frenzied barking, followed by pitiful screams and yelps from the living room._

_'Looks like Puspa, Pee Vee, and Prema are doing their work well,' she mused, flipping over to the next page of her novel._

_Puspa, Pee Vee, and Prema were the three mongrel dogs which her mother kept in a large concealed kennel whose second entrance opened up next to the house's patio entrance. Puspa was the oldest, a bellicose dog that resulted from the crossing between a Rottweiler and a Daschund, whereas Pee Vee and Prema were so bastardized, no one knew just how many breeds had been crossed to produce those two lanky, long-legged magnificent mongrels.  
_

_Given that the front door was wired with a pendulum-like blade above it, the only way to safely enter the house was to come in via the patio entrance. Of course, people who didn't know this would find themselves either headless or cleaved in two, and even those that did know about the blade often didn't know that the fifth plank on the patio floor was linked to the dog kennel by a mechanism that opened the kennel grille once you stepped on it. Larxene recalled once having to help her mother dump the corpse of a beheaded salesman into the Timeless River, after the man ignored the sign reading 'No Solicitors, Snoops, or Idiots that was nailed up on the front door.  
_

_To top it all off, even the toilet seats in the house were rigged with some nasty surprises - everyone living in Elena's house (meaning she, Larxene, and occasionally Tseng when he and Elena did some 'paperwork') knew that if you sat down and leaned back, the seat's cover would release the club that was rigged up on the ceiling directly above the toilet bowl. Once, Reno had visited, and received a nice set of bludgeoned balls when he tried to relax while having a crap - Larxene never knew why Elena had rigged that particular booby trap.  
_

_Whoever it was who said Turks weren't paranoid must have been either an ignoramus, or a bloody fool._

_"Help!" came a pathetic cry from downstairs - Puspa must have sat on the intruder._

_'Finally!' Larxene thought triumphantly, as she got up to head downstairs. She had a little personal obsession with making intruders suffer before she 'saved' them from her mother's three guard dogs._

_After all, anyone who visited this home with any common sense knew that the back door to the kitchen was always unlocked, and also that the knife rack on the wall was rigged to spring at the door's left side once you opened it._

_Heading downstairs, she saw Puspa's bulky black body sprawled out nicely over Marluxia's back, as he lay pinned to the floor by the large dog's weight and the jaws of her two companions (Pee Vee was gnawing on Marluxia's ankle, and Prema was contentedly chewing his forearm)._

_"Marly?" she couldn't believe her eyes, "Is there some reason why I shouldn't let these three have their wicked way with you? A reason for coming over would be good enough."_

_"Just wanted to visit!" said the poor, pooch-paddled, pink-haired teen, "Can't I visit my friend?"_

_She whistled, and the three dogs bounded towards her, leaving Marluxia alone. With a flick of her wrist, the three mongrels jumped up onto the sofa, and sat there watching them._

_"Nice doggies," Marluxia muttered, as he got up and dusted himself off._

_"Mum loves them - they've never failed to take down any intruders before," she said, rolling her eyes, "So why are you REALLY here?"_

_"Wangomome?"_

_"English, Marly. Not whatever-the-fuckese. WHY. ARE. YOU. HERE?"_

_Marluxia drew in a deep breath, and exhaled. Looking straight into Larxene's eyes, he composed himself, and spoke._

_"Wanna catch a movie? They're showing 'Kingdom Hearts' today."_

_His words just passed in through Larxene's right ear and out her left, though - she was too busy trying to get her mind into some semblance of a working order._

_'Ooh, those eyes... So green and lovely...'_

_'Get ahold of yourself, woman!'_

_'Umm... Wonder if the curtains match the carpet?'_

_When she finally realized that he was staring at her curiously due to her lack of response, she decided to use a 'normal' response._

_"Ya know, Marly," she grinned, "Usually it's the GUY that asks the GIRL out."_

_"I'll take that as a yes?"_

_"Hell no! Marly, wanna go watch 'Kingdom Hearts'?"_

_"Umm, whatever you say..."_

_"Then let's go!"_

xxx_  
_

_Later, as they sat down in front of the screen, watching the movie start up, Marluxia turned to face Larxene, who was happily munching on some popcorn._

_"What was that screwed-up talk at your place about?"_

_"What- Oh, that," she snickered, spraying the old lady seated in front of her with some masticated popcorn debris, "That's to remind you that I'M the one wearing the pants here."_

_"I'm perfectly male, thank you very much. And you're really fucked-up, Larxene."_

_"Why, thank you! I'm flattered."_

_"Will you idiots shut up?! The movie's started!"_

_Fifteen minutes later, everyone in the theater was engrossed in the movie, save for a man who was unconscious due to two sudden blows to his head from a certain fiesty blond sitting in front of him._

xxx

Marluxia smiled at the memory, remembering how Larxene had first slapped, then punched the man right in-between the eyes. Diz had given him the two movie tickets after returning from the Monstro Mart on that fateful morning, and had told him that the tickets were for 'Kingdom Hearts and Larxene tomorrow'. So he had summoned up the guts to go to her place, and survived being ambushed by Elena's three canine guards to ask her out.

After that, he hadn't asked her out for another three months. Diz called him a chicken, and then, he tried asking her out once again. But of course, it took a week of further nagging on the old man's behalf, and the threat of being force-fed some Irish Coffee, before he decided to follow Diz's words to 'grow a pair, and get snappy at hooking that catch!'

_Three months after the Kingdom Hearts movie date_

_"Larxene!" Marluxia called from the outside of her house. Inside, up against the patio's glass door, were the house's three four-legged occupants, all staring at him in a curious, bovine manner._

_"What the hell do you want?!" came her snappy reply from upstairs, where she soon appeared at the window, wearing nothing but a towel._

_His eyes bugged-out at the sight of her bare shoulders, and also the view of her... assets that were outlined by the towel she had wrapped arounf herself._

_"Uh..."_

_"You perv!" she stuck her tongue out at him, water dripping tantalizingly off her slick bangs, "Wait right there! I'm coming to beat the shit out of you!"_

_She DID come down, and she DID give him a decent whacking for 'perving on her', as she so eloquently put it. But he recovered just in time to duck a powerful slap (which put a dent in the mailbox), and managed to ask her out for another movie without mangling his words too much._

_To his mild surprise, she agreed._

After that, there had been another movie, and another, and finally, a date at Diz's. They had been alone there, as it was a Sunday night, and most of their friends were busy getting ready for school the next day. Everything had seemed so right then, as they sat next to the shop's front window, holding hands under the table and lost in each others' presence.

He had walked her home, and upon the two of them realizing that Elena wasn't home, some rather... vigorous activities ensued. In fact, it was a wonder that said blond Turk didn't find herself being inducted as a grandmother nine months later.

Without being too delicate about it, they fucked each others' brains out. The next morning found both of them limping to school, and Larxene's room looking like a tornado had gone through it. Elena later had to sterilize the bathtub after she saw some... stains in it, and the three dogs could be seen looking traumatized the morning after 'Hurricane Marxene' had gone through the house.

Elena, who came back late at night, told Larxene the next day to either be less vocal or to soundproof her room, whereas in school, it was officially declared that Larxene and Marluxia were a couple, and that ol' Marly hadn't been gay after all. Diz had a roaring good laugh when he found out, and recommended a certain brand of condoms for their future possible usage, sending the two of them into furious shades of red, while the other eight teens gathered in his shop exploded with mirth.

And of course, everyone somehow miraculously knew that _she _had been the one _on top_.

Larxene never again questioned Marluxia's masculinity, but strangely enough, he never refuted her claims that she was the one who wore the pants in their relationship, either.


	5. Masks

**Masks**

_"Everyone wears a mask. Not a physical kind of mask that you'd wear to a masquerade ball, but rather, a mask that we put on to prevent anyone else from seeing our true colors. Most people, it seems, wear two masks - one for the world at large, and the other being for their acquaintances and family. But then again, there are some others, who are shrewder and wear three masks - one for strangers, one for the people they know, and the last one being for themselves. No, it is not a joke. In fact, people can actually put on so many masks over time, that they eventually forget what their true self once looked like. So by tomorrow, I expect to see forty-four hand-written essays on my desk on the topic 'The Masks We Wear'. Minimum of five-hundred words each, and detentions for anyone who doesn't have a valid excuse for not handing it in."  
_

- Quoted from Miss Quistis Trepe, English teacher at Twilight Town High School, spoken to her Sophomore-year English class

xxx

Like Miss Quistis had said, most people wore a mask or several, depending on how much of their soul they wanted to show to the world around them. For instance, you would just have to look at a certain Mr. Zidane Tribal and his wife, Mrs. Garnet Tribal, to see a perfect example of the masks people wore.

Garnet had been diagnosed with a degenerative nerve disease several years before the Losers had stepped into Twilight Town High for the first time. Since then, numerous therapies had been tried to combat the disease, but to no avail. Being a qualified veterinarian, she performed most of the dissections herself, to see if a new drug or therapy had worked on the disease. So to the students, she might have appeared as a sadistic or eccentric teacher who enjoyed cutting animals open, but in actual fact, she was just a woman who was afraid that her body might fail on her.

Her husband, the hyperactive as well as happy-go-lucky secretary (in his words 'Sexy-tary') of Twilight Town High, also had his own dirty little secrets hidden well behind the smiling mask he wore. When he had first heard about his wife's diagnosis, he had quit from his rather high-paying job, and taken up his present job at the school to be closer to her, in case of anything. Hell, he used to be a _mercenary_, who brought in all sorts of kills for all sorts of people, his kill rate only being lower than the legendary Flaming Amarant's. He still took on the occasional assassination jobs or thievery heists now and then, though, to keep the cash coming for his wife's medical treatment.

So you see, these two frightened people still managed to deceived the world into thinking that they were rather normal aside from their eccentricities, which in truth, were also pretty much falsified.

On the other hand, Sora had never really been afraid. He had always put on a wide smile for the world to see, but inside, he was very nearly a caged animal. A rather small-sized but venomous and cunning snake might have appropriate to describe him, since he would be the kind to smile at you, and actually _thank_ you for insulting him, before stabbing you repeatedly in the back while you turned your back on him to laugh at his 'stupidity'.

Roxas knew this, being Sora's twin brother. But few others knew, and though Axel had been on the receiving end of one of Sora's sneak-attacks, he didn't show any signs of fear and/or hatred towards his chocolate-haired buddy. He had dismissed the vicious beating as a one-off thing, done out of uncontrolled anger. Otherwise, Sora was a harmless guy, right?

But then again, that probably just goes to show just how damned well a 'performance' Sora could put on for his 'audience'.

xxx

Diz watched as Sora sat alone at a table, quietly writing out an essay for Quistis Trepe's English class. Roxas, Riku, Axel, and Kairi had earlier been at the shop also, but had left about five minutes ago to go on a specimen-collection trip for Mrs. Garnet's Biology class. To be specific, the other five teens had been assigned to collect at least twenty different species of insects in a week, starting today. So the five of them had decided to make a trip to the nearby Deep Jungle Forest Reserve, to complete their given assignment.

Hence leaving Sora alone in Diz's shop to finish his homework alone.

Diz now turned to look at Sora, a small frown on his face. The chocolate-haired teenager seemed to be so happy most of the time, yet the smile on his face just seemed... _wrong_. Diz got a distinct feeling of unease whenever Sora shot a smile in his direction, and had at first put it down to either indigestion or paranoia. But when he had later gotten the same vibes off Sora for quite a number of times, he decided to ask Roxas about it. After all, two fraternal twin brothers should be pretty close to each other, he reasoned. Surely Roxas would be able to explain how Sora could project such a _reptilian_ gaze at others.

_Six months earlier_...

_"Roxas, may I ask you something?" Diz said conversationally, wiping a glass at the battered metal sink behind the counter._

_"Sure thing, Diz," Roxas replied, looking up from his Physics homework, "As long as it doesn't involve anything too sensitive or otherwise embarassing, that is."_

_"It's about Sora, Roxas."_

_The teenager's smile had almost instantly vanished, to be replaced with a frown, "What about Sora?"_

_"He seems... Like he's hiding something," Diz answered, for lack of a better description, "And even when he smiles, he isn't 'really' smiling, you know what I'm saying?"_

_Roxas looked particularly uncomfortable after hearing the elderly proprietor's words. He shuffled around briefly in his seat, before he finally answered the question._

_"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know myself."_

_"He's your TWIN, Roxas," Diz raised an eyebrow, "How could you NOT know what Sora is hiding."_

_"The thing is, he isn't hiding anything," Roxas said softly, "As far as I know, that's the way he is."_

_"What do you mean by that?" Diz was taken aback by Roxas' answer._

_Roxas shrugged, then looked absently out of the shop's front display window, "Sora... He's... A complex person."_

_"Complex?"_

_"He never wants to let anyone else see how he really feels about anything, even if he needs help," Roxas sighed, running a hand through his hair, "You know that we only live with our mum, right?"_

_Diz thought for a moment, "She's Rinoa Hikari, isn't she?"_

_"Do you know WHY she raised us alone?" Roxas asked, a hard edge to his voice._

_Diz nodded slowly, seeing the direction their conversation was heading for and not liking it very much, "Spousal abuse, wasn't it?"_

_"Dad was a boozer," Roxas said simply, "And of the two of us, Sora always was the more emotionally-sensitive. When dad hit mum, she'd just take the beating, and Sora would jump in to try and stop him."_

_"Sometimes... We would get hit, too. Especially Sora, since his crying would attract the bastard's attention."_

_Diz noted the venom in Roxas' voice, as he referred to the man who had fathered him as a bastard.  
_

_"So he clammed-up in time. He used to smile and laugh a lot, and that's why his mask can fool almost everyone - it's actually a part of him that he's suppressed. He observes everything and everyone around him, but puts on that face for all of us to see."_

_Diz felt vaguely ill, a pang of sorrow in his heart as he realized how deep the roots of Sora's problem ran. Having a drunkard father that abused his wife and sometimes the children... It was bad enough a situation. But when the child, the poor innocent child was damaged in the long term by the abuse, that was just horrific._

_"I... I see. Thank you, Roxas..."_

_Roxas wordlessly turned back to his Physics problems, and Diz wondered if there was anything he could do to help Sora realize that showing your feelings to others was not always a bad thing._

xxx

"Sora, how's the homework coming along?" Diz asked, as he wiped the counter clean of some imaginary crumbs, "Need a coffee refill?"

Diz had always made it his policy to give free refills to customers in his shop, for all of the cheaper drinks he served there. Coffee, tea, and water were the most common, but juice was also a popular choice for some of his patrons, such as Rude and Tseng. Between the two of them, they could actually drink up nearly two liters of orange squash in one sitting.

"Oh? Homework's fine," Sora smiled, once again sending a minor chill down Diz's spine, "Quistis gave us this essay on 'The Masks We Wear'. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy."

Diz decided to tackle this particular issue directly, "Hmm, I see. And you would happen to be an expert on that particular topic, wouldn't you?"

Sora's mask slipped ever-so-slightly for just a split-second, but he regained his composure almost immediately, and let out a disdainful snort.

"Tell me about it, Diz. Some people I know wear these masks that have so many holes in them, I could count their pimples easily. If they had pimples, that is."

Diz kept his calm as he dumped his wiping rag in the sink, and turned back to face Sora. Damn, he'd known that the kid was good at putting-on a face, but he'd seen _Turks_ that couldn't cover-up a slip nearly as well as Sora had.

"Like who, Sora? Who are those that put on those holey masks for us to see?"

"Well, Roxas, for starters," Diz was mildly-surprised, "He's about as gay as Mr. Xemnas and Saix are, yet he tries to keep everyone convinced that he's as straight as an arrow."

"Then there's Demyx. Most people seem to think that he's as innocent and holy as Father David, but in real life, he's the embodiment of lust, I'd say. And from how he and Zexion seem to get along, he's also quite happy with it."

Diz was slightly impressed, against his will. Sora had proven to be a sharp lad indeed, being able to pin-point the hidden personalities of those around him, and yet remain capable of keeping his own camouflage intact. However, he only seemed to be able to see past those around him who had tried to hide their true nature when it came to terms of sex.

"That's all very informative, Sora," Diz leaned over the counter, "But I'm talking about _you_."

Sora flicked a casual stare at him, "What are you trying to say?"

"You've got on a real good cover, Sora, but I ain't fooled by it. When you've been running this shop for over thirty years, you'd be able to see through almost any mask, too."

Sora remained smiling, though his eyes were cold and hard, "So you think I've got a mask on?"

"I don't _think_ it, Sora. I _know_ it," Diz said crisply, as he looked Sora in the eye. In the teen's blue eyes, he saw a barely-restrained layer of hardness, then, behind that, a deep, underlying sorrow.

The teenager sighed, leaning back in his chair, "So, what gave it away?"

"Your eyes, Sora," Diz replied, turning back to the stove to warm up his pot of coffee, "No matter how good a liar a person may be, their eyes can never lie."

Sora stared at Diz's back for a moment, wondering just how on earth Diz had managed to see right through his carefully-constructed mental armor. No one save for Roxas had ever succeeded in seeing through him, and yet, here was this old man, telling him that his eyes had given him away.

"So tell me Diz..." Sora asked, sighing, "What was it you 'saw in my eyes', as you put it."

"I saw..." the old man paused, "Loneliness and sadness."

"Loneliness and sadness?" the acidic edge of Sora's voice was barely-audible, but still made its presence known to Diz's sharp ears.

"Loneliness caused by you shutting-off your emotions from others. You don't want to get hurt anymore, but you're actually hurting yourself further the more you try to keep your feelings totally under wraps."

He turned to face Sora, his expression sad, "It's a vicious cycle of sorrow that feeds itself. I know how it's like, Sora, trust me. I know."

Diz had been somewhat expecting it to happen, but when Sora broke down into sobs in front of him, memories he had tried to bury resurfaced of their own accord. He couldn't help but remember how he, as a teenager all those decades ago, had walked the exact same path the crying boy was now treading on so adeptly.

After all, it took one to know one, didn't it?

xxx

Sora stood under a shower head in his home, feeling his muscles relax as the spray of scalding-hot water washed over him. He closed his eyes, reveling in the sensation of the hot water running down his body. He did enjoy a shower hot enough to boil him alive every now and then, and today just happened to be one of those days. To be specific, he liked to have a long, hot shower whenever he was particularly stressed-out, or when he felt that things were weighing down heavily on his mind.

As he closed his eyes, relishing the heat that surrounded him, Diz's earlier words to him came back to him, echoing in his mind.

_"I saw... Loneliness and sadness."_

He grit his teeth, trying to block-out the next words, but they came to him anyway, unbidden and unwelcome.

_"Loneliness caused by you shutting-off your emotions from others. You don't want to get hurt anymore, but you're actually hurting yourself further the more you try to keep your feelings totally under wraps."_

He wished that he could just follow Diz's advice and drop his camouflage, but it was his only defense against everything out there in the world...

With a furious cry, his fist shot forward, slamming into the rough concrete wall with enough force to loosen a few teeth had the wall been somebody's face. For a moment, he just stood there, eyes opened, his arm extended. Then, gradually, he withdrew his hand, and watched as droplets of blood turned into small trickling rivulets before his eyes. Looking at the wall, he saw the rough shape of his fist on the wall, outlined in smeared blood.

He stepped back, feeling his back bump against the wall behind him. He sank to the floor, slowly sitting down beneath the shower's spray. Without realizing it, he was crying to himself, the sound of the running shower covering the sounds of his sorrow.

'How can I let everyone see how I'm feeling?'

The water ran cold long before he finally got out of the shower.

xxx

Riku always sat next to Sora in class. It was one of those constants in life, one of those things that you just didn't question. Pi was always 3.141592654, Euler's Number was always 2.71828, gravity always pulled things downwards, and Riku always sat next to Sora in class. It was that simple, really. If the day came when the two of them _were not_ seated adjacent to each other in _any _of their classes, anyone who knew them even at the most superficial level would have known that the two of them must have fought or had some disagreement.

Given the above description of their usual seating arrangement, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Riku was Sora's best friend aside from Roxas, who didn't count since he was his twin brother.

So when Riku saw Sora shuffling quietly into class and plopping himself into his seat bonelessly, he immediately knew that something was up with Sora. Taking a closer look at his best buddy, he saw that Sora's left hand had a band-aid on it.

"Where did _that_ come from?" he asked in a cheerful tone of voice, as Sora started to stare at the chalkboard.

"Accident in the shower," came Sora's muttered response, which only served to confirm Riku's suspicions that Sora was not alright today.

"Jack-off too hard?" he tried one last attempt at humor.

"It's nothing. I don't wanna talk about it."

Riku sat there looking curiously at Sora for a moment, then reluctantly turned to look at the chalkboard as Mr. Xigbar walked into class and started writing-out the formulae for the three Gas Laws that they would be studying during that lesson.

For the whole lesson, he kept stealing glances at Sora, who seemed to be lost in his own world.

xxx

The bell rang after the last class of the day - History which was taught by the (supposedly) insane Mr. Caroll Cheshire - and forty-four students cheered at their release from school for the weekend. Riku watched as Sora walked slowly out of Mr. Cheshire's classroom, and headed towards his locker. Riku decided to tail him, to see just what was bugging his chocolate-haired friend.

xxx

Riku quickly stepped behind a large van as Sora turned back to look suspiciously at the curb behind him. He got the distinct impression that Sora was aware that someone had been on his trail, and so he had been hiding behind all kinds of objects to avoid being seen by his strangely-behaving buddy.

Sora took a left at Twilight Avenue, heading towards the Tram Common at the heart of Twilight Town. Riku discretely followed him past the Sandlot, past the Market Square, and finally, he saw Sora striding casually towards the Twilight Town Clock Tower, a gigantic structure that had been around since before Midgar City had even been an idea in the mind of the late President ShinRa.

The brown-haired teen took a quick look around him, as if to confirm that he was not being observed. Apparently not spotting Riku, he stepped through the doorway that led into the mechanical bowels of the Clock Tower, and shut the door behind him.

Riku's eyes grew wide with panic as he digested the possibility of what Sora was trying to do. Running up to the Clock Tower's door, he tried the handle, only to find it unmovable.

"Shit!" Sora must have locked the door from the inside. Quickly thinking of a solution to the situation at hand, he remembered the old, rickety steel ladder behind the Clock Tower.

As he ran through the light undergrowth at the sides of the Clock Tower, he saw a faint silhouette moving past a window about a quarter-way up the Tower - it must have been Sora. Finally seeing the old ladder, he tested its strength with a foot, then slowly started scaling the hundred-foot height of the Clock Tower.

His arms felt as if they were on fire as he forced himself to rush up the flimsy ladder, trying to beat Sora to the rooftop. About half-way to the top, the colossal clock struck two, its booming tones nearly deafening at such close range.

DONG. DING-DING-DONG. DONG. DING-DING-DONG.

Riku almost lost his grip on the ladder, as the clock sounded out its salute to the hour. He looked up, and saw that he had about forty feet of ladder left between him and the rooftop. Just at that moment, he saw that up ahead, a mass of spiky brown hair was visible through a dusty glass window, about ten feet above his present altitude.

Ignoring the pain in his limbs, Riku forced himself to climb further up, as fast as he would have been if hellhounds and the devil himself had been hot on his heels.

xxx

Sora pushed open the battered wooden door to the Clock Tower's rooftop, where a long ledge ran along the entire edge of the Tower. Fifteen feet beneath his current position, the large clock face resolutely counted-out the seconds, its incredibly-heavy arms moving in accordance with the passage of time.

He looked out at the view, squinting slightly in the bright afternoon sunlight. He could see the miniature bird's-eye-view of Midgar City, and also the blue expanse of the Timeless River, cutting across the landscape like a fat, blue snake that wound around Midgar's circular perimeter, and flowed out of sight as it circumvented the city of obsidian, with its dormant Mako reactors.

"So it's come to this, huh?" he spoke to the empty rooftop, as he walked towards the ledge that was built directly-above the clock's face.

"I'm sick of this shit..." three feet closer to the ledge.

"Time to end this sad 'performance'," Sora now stood on the edge of the Clock Tower's roof, looking down at the Tram Common just fifty-feet away from the base of the Tower.

Just as he was about to turn his back on the breathtaking view he was seeing, and let gravity do its work on him, he heard the screeching sound of rending metal, and a frantic shout of panic that could have only come from Riku.

Remembering the old ladder just on the other face of the Tower, he rushed to the ladder's end, and peeked over the edge.

xxx

Riku cursed and swore as the age-worn ladder finally gave way beneath his weight, its rungs vanishing and falling to the ground almost magically. He was only three feet from the rooftop now, and he managed to grab hold of a ladder rung just above him. Beneath him, the fallen rungs hit the ground at the base of the Tower, one of them hitting the cement pavement with a dull CLANG!

Just then, Sora's head came into view over the edge of the roof, and he looked up at Sora for a moment, his own predicament forgotten. Later, when he looked back on that moment, Riku would always say that Sora's eyes seemed... empty, and devoid of any emotion.

"Sora!" he cried, "What the Hell are you trying to do?!"

"What the Hell are you doing here?!" retorted Sora, as he leveled an angry glare at Riku, "You've just messed things up for both of us!"

"You aren't thinking of seriously killing yourself, are you?"

"Why shouldn't I?" cried Sora, and Riku saw the desperation in Sora's eyes, "It's all an act, don't you see?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?!" Riku asked, bewildered. His arms were becoming numb, and the rung he was holding on to was bending slightly, "Sora, a little help here!"

For a moment, the other teen just stared at him blankly, and he felt a chill run up his spine. Sora wouldn't let him fall, would he?

CREAAAKKK!

The rung bent even more, protesting loudly against his weight.

"Sora!" he shouted desperately, "HELP!"

That seemed to do it - Sora leaned over carefully, and grabbed hold of his arms. Pulling hard, the other teen hoisted him up onto a more secure rung, and Riku gratefully clambered up to the rooftop. Flipping over onto his back, he greedily sucked-in several lungfuls of the sweetest air he had ever breathed, and looked over at Sora, who was staring reproachfully at him.

"Sora," he panted, getting up into a sitting position, "What. The. Hell. Are. You. Trying. To do?"

The other teen glared at him, the look on his face close to murderous, "I hate you. You ruined everything!"

"What are you talking about?!" Riku snapped, jumping to his feet, his muscles protesting at the effort.

"I wanted everything to end nice and neat," Sora replied, stepping closer to him, "But you MESSED IT ALL UP!"

Before Riku could react to Sora's words, Sora lunged forward with a bestial bellow, grabbing Riku one-handedly by the collar of his shirt. Showing surprising strength, he hefted Riku over to the edge of the rooftop, and brought his face to within an inch of Riku's.

"Maybe I should end _everything _right now," he hissed into Riku's face, his eyes showing unmasked, red-hot anger.

Riku panicked, but nonetheless managed to speak up for himself, "Sora, maybe you should try and calm-"

"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!"

With a grunt, Sora slugged him in the face with his free hand, sending his vision into momentary blurriness. Then, he let out an animalistic cry that seemed both sorrowful and furious at the same time, and flung Riku down onto the hard, stone-made rooftop.

Riku hit the stone surface hard, grimacing in pain as his head impacted on the aged granite. Forcing himself up onto his feet, he saw that Sora was backing up against the door that led down into the bowels of the Tower, and was looking at him, tears welling-up in his blue eyes.

The other teen finally stepped right up to the door, his back bumping against the wooden door. He then looked lost for a moment, before letting out a faint, barely-audible whisper.

"Riku... Sorry..."

Sora burst into tears, and Riku slowly approached him, and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He sat down next to the crying teen, and remained silent, his wordless presence at that moment a hundred times as consoling as a thousand words ever could have been.

The sun was almost setting, and a long time later, before the two of them finally left the Clock Tower.


	6. Backbone

**Backbone**

_"All of you need to learn the importance of being assertive! Almost nothing is better than a solid backbone to support you when others may try to beat you down and trample on you. Learn to say 'no', learn to stick by your words and values, and most importantly of all, realize that you are who YOU want yourself to be, not what anyone else may want you to become. Stand by what you know to be right, and never give way to anything that pressures you!"_

- Quoted from Mr. Magus Merlin, chief guidance counselor at Twilight Town High School, spoken to the Sophomore classes of the year 2009 during a motivational speech.

xxx

"What is art?" asked the flamboyant Mr. Kuja Tribal, the Art teacher for Namine's Sophomore-year art course, who also happened to be the elder brother to a certain eccentric Zidane Tribal, the 'Sexy-tary' of Twilight Town High. While the younger of the two was just plain hyperactive, the elder Tribal brother was a natural showman, flashy and dramatic to the point of being ridiculous.

Therefore, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that whispered snickers of 'Faggot' often graced the hallways as Mr. Kuja passed by any of the students. It didn't help that he dyed his hair silver, too. Silver hair, colorful clothes, frilled shirts? _Eyeliner?_ Signs of a metrosexual male if there had ever been any.

Despite all the rumors regarding his apparent ambiguous sexual orientation and natural flamboyance, Namine did enjoy her Art classes. Mr. Kuja wasn't all talk and no action - the man was a wizard with a paint brush, or nearly any other medium, for that matter. With a few swift strokes of his brushes, he would fill up blank sheets of drawing-block paper with wonderfully-detailed landscapes, faces, mosaics, patterns, and even simple scenes taken from a person's daily life. With a crayon, pencil, or pen, he sketched beautiful pieces of artwork. In fact, the art classroom in Twilight Town High was literally crammed with his works and that of his best students, what with framed paintings, sculptures, and other works of art being placed on all manner of horizontal surfaces in said classroom. The wall's original color was not visible - so many framed paintings covered the walls that the paint was no longer visible. To keep things fresh, Mr. Kuja would swap the hung-up paintings every week or so, with some others from the huge stacks of them that he kept in the tiny closet behind the art room.

"Come on, students!" the silver-haired teacher wheedled, "What is art? Any answer will do; there is no right or wrong here!"

A few sniggers broke out at the back of the art room, as his more lackluster students processed his query.

Finally deciding to answer his own question, given that his students seemed to lack the initiative to do so, he cried out, "ART CAN BE ANYTHING!"

Cue blank stares from most of his students. Kuja mentally sweat-dropped, as he frantically tried to think of a way to substantiate his claim.

"Look at this pencil!" he said happily, grabbing one from a student's desk in the front row, "It is ART!"

The blank stares persisted.

"Observe its straight lines!" he said, gritting his teeth, "The yellow paint, the red eraser at the end... It is all ART!"

He distinctly thought he heard a whispered "Damn weirdo fruitcake."

Oh well, time to try another approach, "EVEN THE NAKED BODY OF A WOMAN CAN BE CONSIDERED AS ART!"

This drew more stares from his students, but no further response was noticeable. Resigning himself to the fact that most of his students were either retarded or incapable of learning the finer points of art, he headed back towards his table.

Sighing, he sat down behind his table, tossing the pencil back towards the student he had taken it from, "Oh well, since you lot don't seem to be appreciative of my lessons, go on and draw anything you want to. All drawings due at the end of the period."

Not surprisingly, at the end of the period, only one completed drawing - a gem among the numerous rock band logos, scratchy landscapes, and obscene doodles - was placed on his table, by a shy-looking blond girl.

"Here you go, Mr. Kuja," she said softly, as the others filed out of the classroom.

"Ah, Namine," he perked-up visibly, "My favorite student! So what's your inspiration today?"

She blushed, and nudged her drawing towards him. He finally took a good look at it, and whistled appreciatively.

"That's a nice piece of work, Namine."

The drawing was of a squat, pine-like tree, twisted and gnarled with age, a bed of yellowed needles on the forest floor surrounding its girth-heavy trunk. Colored with crayons, the scene was so real Kuja could practically smell the faint scent of pine sap coming out of the drawing. He was briefly lost in thought, recalling a visit to the Magdalene Forest with his dear younger brother Zidane, several years ago... Shaking his head to clear it of any memories irrelevant to the current situation, he turned back to face his favorite student.

"Good job, Namine," he said, keeping the paper in his drawer, "I'll be framing this one up, that's for sure."

"Oh, no!" she giggled, "No need for that..."

"Ah, it's nothing," he laughed, "Go on now! Miss Lani will be waiting for you, I'm sure."

The girl visibly paled at the moment when he mentioned her infamous Calculus teacher's name, and she positively fled out of his classroom. Kuja stared after her, bewildered at her response to his words.

xxx

Namine arrived in her next class just a few seconds before her short, chain-smoking, busty, and foul-tempered Calculus teacher, Miss Lani Euclid, stepped into the classroom. Her (Miss Lani's) arrival into the room threw an immediate damper on any happiness that might have been in the room, and somehow, the room seemed to become sweltering-hot and also permeated with an aura of impending claustrophobia.

"Alright, you little morons!" snapped the short woman in her cigarette-roughened voice, as she slammed down her books and teaching materials on the teacher's desk in front of the class, "Roll call time! Say 'yes' when I call out your name!"

Roll call went by uneventfully, save for two absent students, one who had called-in sick, and the other which had decided to play truant. This was, of course, not a wise thing to do for the aforementioned teacher's classes - once, she had caught a student playing hooky, and had unleashed upon the poor soul such a barrage of foul language and anger, that the unfortunate kid had to be given counseling sessions with Mr. Merlin after that. Apparently, she had in the course of her tirade, insulted his mother, father, religious icons, brothers, sisters, cousins, pets, and even an obscure, distantly-related aunt.

Just another casualty to be added to her list of 'kills', that boy was - her exams had been known to make students either wet themselves, faint, break down into tears, or go into fits of various kinds. Somehow, she radiated such an aura of nastiness, most people (Mr. Xemnas and Saix included) couldn't say a single word while she was verbally pummeling them into the next century.

It also didn't help that she had been honorably discharged from ShinRa's SOLDIER unit after having proved herself to be rather _too_ efficient and enthusiastic with several interrogation jobs. The subjects - members of an environmental preservation group - that were being questioned had been broken down enough to reveal all the wanted information, but had also been sufficiently traumatized to never again try and do anything to sabotage ShinRa's corporate activities.

The only reason why said sadist was still employed was because she had a tendency to produce record-breaking numbers of A-grade Calculus students, who would later go on to be engineers, architects, and scientists. Most of them would even send 'Thank You' cards to her, which she proudly displayed on her desk in the staff room.

"Now, we're done with that bloody waste of my time!" she declared, stuffing her register into one of the drawers of her teacher's desk, "So, on with today's work."

Nervous glances were exchanged, and sweat started to accumulate on several foreheads, backs, and armpits.

"Yesterday's homework," continued Miss Lani sweetly, her tone of voice about as caring as a flask of liquid nitrogen could be, "Was the fundamentals for today's topics. So out with all of yesterday's work, now! On your tables with the work, all of you!"

Bags were opened and books dutifully brought out onto desks, regardless of rather or not said homework had been complete. The trapped pupils were perfectly aware that hiding your books in your bag or telling her that you'd forgotten to bring her notes would either result in an almighty slap, a shelling, or your bag being sent into geosynchronous orbit out of the window.

"Idiot! Who the Hell taught you how to write out equations that way?!"

"Get out of my sight, you imbecile!"

"Mathematics requires thinking, fool! Grow a brain and try that problem again!"

Such were the numerous words uttered by Miss Lani as she walked down the aisles between desks, inspecting the works of her diligent (this is questionable) pupils.

The first piece of incomplete homework was discovered not long after that.

"What the Hell is this shit?! Why isn't my work complete?"

"Err, Miss Lani-"

"Shut the bloody Hell up. GET THE SHIT OUT OF MY CLASS, YOU ASSHOLE!"

Finally, she completed her inspection of the class' homework, and after having booted three more students out of the class for failing to complete their homework, she marched back angrily to the front of the room.

"Now, seeing as you lot are total incompetents at the fine study of calculus," she sneered, "I'll have to do a quick recap of yesterday's lesson. Vivi Ornitier!"

The yellow-eyed boy grew wide-eyed as he sat up straighter in his seat, his expression nervous at being pinpointed by Lani.

"What is the value of Euler's Number?" she barked fiercely.

"Um... Two-"

"Too slow! Grow a pair and work fast, you doofus!" she snapped, turning to another student, "Marlene Wallace! Answer the question!"

"Two-point-seven-one-eight-two-eight," recited the girl dutifully, earning an approving nod from the teacher.

"Good, but next time don't forget to mention the recurring decimals - I wont let any of you off for that silly mistake after this warning. Namine Utada!"

Namine's blood ran cold as she heard her name being called out by Lani. In her nervousness, she barely-heard the question she was being asked to answer.

"State the value of the natural logarithm of one!" ordered the short woman, her hands on her hips.

"Uh..."

"You've never answered _any _of my questions correctly before, idiot fool! Today, you _will_ answer the question."

"Is it one?"

"Don't bloody answer my question with another!" boomed Lani, her expression furious, "ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION; WHAT IS THE VALUE OF THE NATURAL LOGARITHM OF ONE?!"

Namine felt tears welling-up in her eyes, as she struggled to recall the mental calculations to answer the question, "It's one, Miss Lani."

"Why, you little _wasted sperm_!" shrieked an infuriated Lani, storming over to Namine's desk, and viciously wrenching the diminutive girl out of her seat by the forearm, "OUT OF MY CLASS, NOW! OUT, OUT OUT!"

"But-"

Namine found her weak protests being ignored, and her body being propelled rapidly towards the door. Soon enough, she was unceremoniously thrown out into the corridor, her bag and books flying out after her.

"The natural logarithm of one is ZERO, you stupid, good-for-nothing girl!" Lani shouted, as Namine cowered on the corridor floor outside the classroom, "Get out of my sight - I don't want to see you until my next lesson with this class!"

The door to the classroom slammed shut with a loud BANG, just as Namine burst into tears from where she was sprawled on the cold cement floor of the hallway.

Lani's muffled voice was heard from behind the door, "Stupid girl thinks that just drawing and doodling will get her somewhere. Mindless moron! If you can hear me out there, DON'T BOTHER DRAWING ANY PRETTY PICTURES OUT THERE, YOU HEAR?!"

xxx

Namine slowly walked into Diz's after school had been let out for the day, Miss Lani's earlier criticisms weighing-down heavily on her mind. It wasn't the first time she had been bodily-removed from the fiery-tempered teacher's class, and to be frank, she didn't think it would be the last, either. She never really had a good grasp on numbers, and had only chosen the Calculus course because earlier on, it had seemed like the lesser of the four evils which comprised education in Mathematics at Twilight Town High - Calculus, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Algebra.

The lank-haired, blond shopkeeper smiled as he spotted her, but the cheerful expression vanished from his face as soon as he saw her downcast looks.

"What happened, Namine?" he asked, concern in his voice.

"It's nothing, Diz," she replied quietly, sitting down at a table, and pulling out her homework for the day, "Just had a bad day, that's all..."

"I know you and your lot better than that, child," he said, not unkindly, "So how about you tell ol' Diz what's been eating at you?"

"Like I said, it's nothing," she said, her voice wavering, "I've just had a bad day today."

Diz paused to consider her behavior for a moment, wondering just _what_ could have upset the quiet, artistic girl that he knew. In just a moment, the answer popped-up in his mind.

"It was Miss Lani, wasn't it?"

Namine's nod was barely-perceptible, but Diz caught the slight action in his sight. The tears welling-up in the teenage girl's eyes didn't escape his notice, either.

"What did she do to you, this time?" the elderly man asked softly, "Did she throw you out of class again?"

"Yes," Namine whispered, as a tear dropped from one of her eyes to splash onto a page of her opened English notebook, "She... she... she called me a 'little wasted sperm'..."

Diz was, at some level, mortified by the Calculus teacher's crass language, but somehow, he wasn't that surprised - he had known Lani since her days at Twilight Town High, and he had never really liked the hot-tempered young woman. She had even grabbed a student by the collar once, and slugged him in the face, while calling him a 'Fucking lazy fruitcake'.

"That's a little extreme, but at least she didn't bring out the big guns to bear on you," he consoled her, as he brought a hot cup of coffee to her table, "Here, have some of this; it's on the house, kiddo."

"Thanks, Diz," she nodded, drying her eyes, "But it wasn't really that which was hard on me..."

"Eh?"

"She said that I was a fool, that drawing was never meant to bet me anywhere," the miserable girl muttered, staring sadly into the black depths of her coffee.

He paused in the middle of wiping a mug, and tried to decide on the best way to help her along with the issue at hand. From what he knew, Lani was a psychotic, sadistic, and vulgar woman who couldn't stand any shows of possible incompetence under her watch. Namine, however, was a shy, quiet, and creative girl who would prefer to sit silently in a corner and draw out scenes from her very vivid imagination. Somehow, he wondered if a deity somewhere had been offended or something, to result in such an opposing pair of people being brought together as a teacher and her student.

"Hmm... I'd disagree with her on that," said Diz, as he placed the wiped mug on a shelf, and pulled another wet mug out of the sink, " It's only fair for me to say that excelling at maths could also provide you with squat for getting somewhere in life."

"I beg your pardon?" Namine asked, looking up from scrutinizing her cup of coffee, "What do you mean?"

"Does drawing make you happy?" Diz asked gently, as he squinted at the mug he was wiping, checking for any missed spots.

"Yes!" Namine immediately answered, her eyes lighting up with excitement, "I'd like nothing more in the world than to draw, but then again..."

"So you'd be perfectly fine not being an engineer, architect, or rocket scientist?"

"Obviously, Diz. Duh!"

"And do you honestly think you's been doing your best during her lessons and tests?"

The young artist hesitated for a moment, mentally evaluating her studiousness when it came to Calculus. Deciding that she had indeed paid attention and at the very least tried to do well in the tests, she gave a small nod to Diz, who smiled back at her.

"The next time Her Royal Bitchesty tries to wail on you for not doing well in her class, tell her to shut the heck up. She wasn't too hot a student during her school days, herself."

Namine looked boggled, "But how can I do that?! She's a _teacher!_"

Diz rolled his eyes, "She's already under probation by the school board for her nonsensical actions. If all else fails, just ask her about how her PhD is coming along."

"She's a doctorate student?"

"No, she's not; she failed to get it. Beat another student into a pile of broken bones, and got booted-out of her university. End of story."

Namine still was doubtful, though, and Diz thought it appropriate to try and approach the matter from a different perspective.

"She wont be the first, Namine."

"Huh?"

"Miss Lani may be a bloody pain, but she wont be the first in your life. Tell me, how many times have you stood up to someone like her who was picking on you?"

The fifteen-year-old girl remained silent, as she digested his words. As she thought about her answer to his question, she realized that she had never really tried to stand up for her own self. Never had she even thought of defending her own properties and beliefs; everything before this had been about blending into the crowd, and running away rather than sticking around to fight for what she believed was right.

"The world out there is filled with people like Lani, Namine. So please, learn to stand up for yourself."

With those words, Diz walked into his pantry, leaving her alone to stew in her thoughts, over a cup of coffee that had long since gone cold.

_Two days later..._

Miss Lani stormed into her classroom with a predatory grin on her face, the sadistic expression seemingly dividing her face into two due to its sheer width.

"Surprise test today!" she sang, eliciting several muted groans from her students, "Shut the Hell up and keep away your books, you turds!"

She then proceeded to flit from desk-to-desk like an over-sized hummingbird, neatly depositing a sheet of paper on each desk she passed, with several questions printed on the aforementioned sheets.

"Now, there are only _four_, EASY questions for this test!" she happily chirped, as she skipped back to the front of the class, having given out a sheet of the test's questions to all of her students, "You have half-an-hour to complete the test, and I'll spend the other period marking them. You fools can study during that period - after the test, HAH!"

Sweat beaded on foreheads and knuckles were cracked, as pencils were brought down onto sheets of foolscap paper and neurons stretched to perform the mental gymnastics necessary to pass the deceptively-easy test.

Namine inhaled, and then exhaled, as she stared at her question paper, trying to make some sense out of the question before her. Deciding to try and re-read it once again, she slowly took in the words that were printed in neat, black ink on her question sheet.

_Sketch the graph for e to the power of 2x, and label its asymptote. Then, show that ln 1 = 0._

Vaguely recalling something like that from her notes, she roughly sketched out the required graph, and marked it as required by the question. Then, she wrote out the proof for the question's next part. She then moved on to the next question.

_Find the area of the region bounded by the curves..._

As the half-hour allocated for the test counted-down its last five minutes, Namine walked to the front of the class, and handed in her answer sheet. Miss Lani, who was playing with a Rubix cube, didn't notice her presence at her desk, until Namine cleared her throat.

"Ahem."

Namine's uttered sound might as well have been a gunshot in the pin-drop silence of the classroom. Miss Lani's head whipped up so fast, it almost seemed as though her head was rigged with a spring mechanism. Forty-three pairs of eyes swiveled to gaze at the teacher's desk, where Namine was standing.

"What is it?" snapped Lani, throwing her Rubix cube down with a dull THUNK. Namine noticed that she had solved three of its sides, "Come to hand in a blank paper?"

"Actually, I've answered all of the questions," Namine replied shakily, not looking Lani in the eye, "So I've come to get my answers marked."

Lani glared at her, before snatching-up the sheet of foolscap, and whipping out a red sharpie from her utility drawer. She forcefully uncapped the pen, and started reading Namine's answer sheet. Her eyes flicked from left-to-right slowly, as she took in every bit of Namine's writing.

Her expression changed from anger, to one of disbelief. Then, almost as abruptly, her face changed again to an angry one.

"What is the meaning of this shit?!"

Everyone in the room froze for a few moments, and sphincters tightened as Lani slowly looked up from the paper to stare at Namine.

"Never before," she hissed, crumpling Namine's paper in her small hand, "Have I seen a _lying bitch_ like you in my class!"

If it had been physically-possible, several pairs of eyeballs would have been lying on the floor at those words, as eyes widened to the size of saucers all over the classroom. One of those pairs of eyes belonged to Namine, as she stared, puzzled, at her red-faced teacher.

"Wha... what do you-" stuttered Namine, only to be interrupted by Lani.

"YOU ARE A NO-GOOD, CHEATING PIECE OF SHIT!" shouted Lani, slamming a fist down onto her desk, Namine's crumpled test paper being compressed even further by the force of the sudden strike.

At that moment, time seemed to stop for Namine, as she heard a soft voice in her mind.

_"The world out there is filled with people like Lani, Namine. So please, learn to stand up for yourself."_

"- STUDY, YOU DECIDED TO-"

"SHUT UP!"

It was as though Namine had pulled out a gun in the classroom. There was silence for a moment, immediately followed by excited chattering and speaking among the students.

"QUIET!" bellowed Lani, standing up in her seat, and upending her chair in the process of doing so. With a demented shriek, she slammed a fist into the chalkboard behind her, smashing a hole in the green wood.

She glared angrily at Namine, her fist still in the hole she had made in the chalkboard, "What. Did. You. Say?"

"I told you to shut up!" Namine replied, standing her ground as she faced-down with the most-feared female teacher to ever walk a turn at Twilight Town High, "I didn't cheat, and you know it!"

"A LIKELY STORY!" shouted Lani, as she withdrew her fist from the hole in the board, and brandished the messy ball that had once been Namine's answer sheet, "HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS, THEN?!"

"Explain what?" Namine snapped, momentarily forgetting who she was shouting at.

"A perfect score!" spat Lani, as she threw the crumpled paper to the ground, and stepped on it, "No student has managed to get one one ANY of my tests for nearly ten years!"

"I must have been lucky, then," Namine retorted, glaring at her Calculus teacher. At that moment, she realized that she actually was _taller _than the foul-mouthed woman.

"Why, you _fucking_," wheezed Lani, her face now a nice shade of purple, "_WASTED SPERM!_"

Lani took a step towards Namine, hand raised as if to strike her student. Before she could dish out the blow, however, the outraged teacher let out a sharp gasp, and her other hand clutched at her chest. Without any further speech, she crashed to the floor, and lay motionless there.

Pandemonium erupted in the class a few seconds later, once the students realized the possible consequences of what had just happened. Namine could only stand rooted to the spot, staring in horror at the still form of her Calculus teacher.

xxx

"- collapsed in her classroom today, after verbally-abusing a student!" announced the newscaster excitedly, as though the mad teacher had once upon a time taught her, "An investigation is currently being conducted into these rather serious allegations, and as of now, the Twilight Town High School board of governors has elected the respectable Mr. Garland Genesis to replace Miss Lani Euclid as the Calculus teacher at the school. This is Julia Knickoff, on Channel Eight News."

"So ol' Lani finally got what was coming to her," cheered Axel, as he sipped from his cup of soda, "And Diz, has this soda expired?"

"Possibly. Shall I check?" Diz asked absently, waving towards the large dispenser on his counter, "I re-filled it last week."

"Then your stock of soda might have been bad," suggested Roxas.

"Well, some of them still _are_ in glass bottles," added Riku. Indeed, Diz's stock of soda was probably quite old, given that some of the bottles were still made of glass, and not plastic.

"Mr. Garland?" Zexion interrupted, seemingly in a state of minor shock, "_The_ Mr. Garland?"

"There's only one such teacher, so I'd say yes, that's him," Demyx rolled his eyes, "Seriously, Zexion, what's so special about him?"

"He's one of Twlight University's more respected lecturers in Advanced Mathematics!" exclaimed the slate-haired boy enthusiastically, "And he-"

"It's all my fault," Namine's quiet voie said, just as Zexion was about to go into a full-blown roll on His Holiness, Saint Garland.

"What in five of seven hells are you rambling about?" asked Larxene, from where she was seated on Marluxia's lap, "Making the Prissy Bitch have a coronary?"

"Yes," whispered Namine, nodding slowly, "What if she dies? It'll all be my fault-"

"Aww, knock-off this crap already!" exclaimed Sora, as he chugged-down a cup of the (possibly) expired soda, "Nami, answer me honestly, okay? Was Lani super-bitchy a lot?"

"Well..."

"And was she the literal personification of the sin of wrath?"

Axel hooted with laughter, "Son-of-a-bitch, Sora! That's-"

Sora silenced Axel with a raised middle finger, and went back to looking at Namine, "Well, was she? Answer me, Namine."

"Yes," Namine conceded, grimacing slightly - Sora was creepy when he got all serious like that...

"So she would have been a likely candidate for a heart attack, anyway," finished Sora, as he eyed the soda dispenser suspiciously, "Don't lose any sleep over her, I'm telling you. If she dies, _que sera sera_."

Silence reigned in the shop for a moment, as everyone (save for Riku and Diz) wondered just how Sora could be so hyperactive at times, and yet turn so serious at moments like this.

Marluxia took a sip of soda from his glass, that had thus far remained untouched, and made a grimace of disgust, "Um, Diz?"

"Eh?"

"I think Axel is right - your bleeding stock IS expired."

And that was that for the discussion about Miss Lani's sudden heart attack after Namine's first attempt at standing up for herself.


	7. Footsteps

**Footsteps**

_"It is not uncommon at all for a child to grow up wanting to follow in his or her parents' footsteps and doing what they did for a living. This is actually caused by a deep-rooted belief within the child that his or her parents are idols to a certain extent, and as such, the child will have a tendency to want to grow up to be just like mum or dad. However, in cases whereby one or both parents aren't always around to take care of the child, the child might instead develop in the converse of what I had mentioned before this. This would mean that the child would instinctively avoid being anything at all like his or her parents, and will do anything at all within his or her power to prevent his or herself from becoming into what is viewed as a negligent person. In some other cases, the child might want to do something to prove his or her parents that they were wrong, and that their child has exceeded all expectations."_

- Quoted from Mrs. Maria Owlson, Home Economics teacher at Twilight Town High, spoken to her Sophomore-year class during a cooking lesson.

xxx

Sanity, morality, and being law-abiding were three highly-overrated traits, if you asked a particular red-headed teenager at Twlight Town High School. To be specific, ask a certain Mr. Axel Flynn, a junior-year student, about his opinions regarding the three aforementioned traits, and you'll be presented with an in-depth, colorful, and definitely long speech (more like a rant, really) about how supposedly sane people often have behavior quirkier than those present in a lunatic's asylum, how people with high moral standards are bloody hypocrites, and how following the rules was just something you _shouldn't_ do, given that life is already too short and complicated to bother with such troublesome things such as rules. So it could be said that Axel Flynn, son of Reno Flynn, Turk Commander-In-Chief, was indeed a young man with some strong opinions of his own.

However, despite him having those beliefs, it wouldn't be entirely fair to condemn and label him as a juvenile delinquent. Sure, he had been known to display pyromaniac tendencies and had set numerous objects on fire, Twilight Town High's chief guidance counselor Mr. Magus Merlin's beard included among the list of materials whose untimely destruction had been due to him having fun with a Zippo lighter. Oh, and who could forget? He DID have a fondness for throwing a pair of chakrams around, that his father had brought home for him one Christmas (this was of course, when said red-headed Turk was pissed as a pup, and drunk like a skunk). Those chakrams had shown a tendency for being _very_ sharp, and also _very_ prone to flying off-course when he threw them at a target (usually a battered-old dartboard riddled with holes that he had nailed up on his home's wooden fence).

So really, aside from Mr. Merlin's scorched beard, a beheaded pigeon, a tragically-smashed flowerpot, and that one incident with the window washer, barbeque grill, and gasoline tank, Axel couldn't really be labeled as a juvenile delinquent. After all, accidents happened, right?

xxx

"I just don't get it, Axel," Reno drawled, from where he was sprawled out - just a pair of boxers and a faded T-shirt keeping him from being disturbingly pornographic- on the Flynn household's overstuffed, shapeless, and much-abused couch, "How in Shiva's name did you manage to get an _eight_ on one of _Saix's_ tests?"

"He's a sadist. I lost ten marks due to a blurry inequality sign, for Christ's sake!"

Reno rolled his eyes, and stubbed out his cigarette on Axel's test paper, right where Saix had stamped it with a mark for him to sign it for Axel's failing grade, "Bleeding Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Axel. Geometry isn't that hard..."

"Maybe for you it wasn't," Axel retorted, "I can't make head or tail of most of this shi-"

"Axel," Reno interrupted, "I took geometry when I was your age. Calculus and trig, too. Elena took the whole package of trig, calc, algebra, and geometry. It wasn't that tough, and I doubt the maths has changed much in sixteen years."

His son remained silent after that sentence, and he decided to press his point further, taking advantage of Axel's lack of words.

"You need good grades if you want to get a decent job, son."

"That's what it's all about, isn't it, dad?"

In a move that didn't surprise him, given his honed instincts and body language skills, Axel turned around and walked-off towards his room, slamming the door behind him. Reno had seen the way his son's eyes kept shifting sights as they talked to each other, and how Axel had been swaying slightly on his feet, without showing any signs of being light-headed.

What _did_ surprise him was the muttered phrase he thought he heard coming from Axel.

Reno sighed, and dismissed it as a figment of his imagination; after all, which kid _didn't_ want to get good grades and get a decent, stable job that payed well?

He decided that maybe, he'd clean his ears later. If only he could find that packet of Q-tips he'd bought last month...

xxx

The little doorbell which had been hung above Diz's door for the last thirty years or so tinkled cheerily as it heralded the arrival of the coffee shop's newest visitor of the sunny weekend day ('the day' so far covering only two hours, given that Diz opened at six-thirty in the morning), a certain red-headed kid named Axel Flynn. Said teenager, sixteen years old and counting, saw that the proprietor was nowhere in sight, and sat down huffily at one of the smaller tables in a corner of the shop. He dug a thick, age-worn book out of his backpack. Heaving the book's thick cover open, he tried to firget everything around him, and to immerse himself in the world of JRR Tolkien's writing.

"Tough day, Axel?" Diz asked from behind the counter, where he had suddenly appeared as if by magic.

Axel only offered a non-commital grunt in reply.

"That bad, huh?" the elderly man chuckled, and picked up a glass that needed wiping, "Take it easy, kid. All clouds have a silver lining, you know. Heh!"

When Axel didn't give any response to his words, Diz shrugged, and went back to organizing his crockery and cutlery, lovingly wiping every single cup, fork, spoon, and glass down with a rag, before stowing them away carefully in a musty-smelling cupboard that he used to keep his serving items in.

Out of the blue, Axel spoke to him, in a tone of voice that was as casual as one would have been when discussing the weather.

"Diz, how can I become a Turk?"

The question caught him totally off-balance, and he nearly dropped the glass he had been holding, as he mentally-processed the teen's strange query. Most people tried to stay as far _away_ as possible from the notorious Turks, but here Axel was, casually asking about how he could enlist himself into the ranks of the blue suits!

Well, Diz had to concede that if a kid had been raised by a single father who was a Turk, and who had spent his formattive years being taught how to spot concealed weapons, said child might probably decide to follow in his father's footsteps and become one of ShinRa's elite thugs. A life of lies, sins, and fear probably appealed to the younger generation of today, come to think of it...

Deciding that a cautious approach was in order, he answered Axel's question as generally as he could, under the circumstances.

"Well, I personally have no idea. I think that you'd need to be a SOLDIER cadet first, and then get promoted into the Turks for outstanding performance."

"Hmm..." Axel nodded, and went back to reading his copy of 'The Two Towers'.

Diz just stood there for a moment, staring at Axel forcing himself to read, before letting out a sigh. Very obviously, the kid was thinking of some deep stuff, and he intended to get to the bottom of it. He had a hunch, though, as to what was on Axel's mind...

He chanced an educated guess, "So, what did Roxas say to you?"

"Nothing. The two of us are still best buddies, Diz..."

Dang it, another try, "Is it a teacher? Miss Lani's in hospital, and not likely to return, you know."

A grunt. Ah, some progress...

"So, when are you leaving school?"

"What? I have no idea what you're rollin' about, Diz."

"You are trying to figure out the chances for you to become a Turk. Your grades are... 'disturbing', as your good friend Mr. Saix informed me when he stepped in here for coffee the other day. And so I assumed that you'll be trying to drop out of school to go for SOLDIER, and then the Turks," Diz replied nonchalantly, "Do I win the thousand-dollar grand prize?"

Axel slammed his book shut, and glared at Diz, "Why should you care about that, anyways?"

"Axel, I've known you for only a year, now, and I'd say that you don't have what it takes to be a member of SOLDIER, or the Turks."

"How would _you_ know, Diz? I don't recall you being in SOLDIER yourself..."

"Respect your elders, young man!" Diz said huffily, "I was not in SOLDIER, but I have been serving them drinks and food since they were founded in 1991, ya. So I've seen the whole lot of them in here before, and trust me on this, kiddo - you don't have the makings of a SOLDIER in you."

"And just WHAT are the 'makings of a SOLDIER', pray tell?" Axel had taken out his lighter and was now flicking it to life randomly, every few seconds.

"Being immoral, vicious, and mechanical," Diz looked him in the eye, "Not to mention being willing to sell your soul to the Devil, also known as Rufus ShinRa."

"Rufus ShinRa, the _Devil_?" Axel retorted bemusedly, "I've met him here several times, Diz. He don't seem that bad."

Diz sighed at Axel's naivette, "Axel, do you recall how President ShinRa died several years back?"

"Nah... What does this have to do with SOLDIER, anyway?"

"Everything, Axel, everything... Come here, and I'll show you."

Out came the ancient photo album, and Diz opened up the large tome, showing to Axel the reason why Rufus ShinRa was called a Devil by some of Twilight Town's more colorful residents.

"See this picture?" he asked, pointing at a picture of a morbidly-obese man in a red, pinstriped suit, who was lying in a coffin, "That was President ShinRa, Rufus' father."

"Alright..."

"And here's the newspaper article on his death," Diz stated as he flipped a page to show Axel a old, yellow-stained newspaper cutting with the headline 'PRESIDENT SHINRA MURDERED!'

"'Murdered'?" Axel asked flatly, disbelieving, "How?"

"Read it and see, Axel."

Axel's eyes flicked from left-to-right, as he read the article. It seemed like something out of a mystery novel, the way things were worded in the paragraphs of fading print.

_... President ShinRa murdered in his own home..._

_... multiple bullet wounds on his torso..._

_... no signs of intrusion...  
_

_... his Turk bodyguards have no comments..._

_... son, Rufus, twenty-one, poised to assume control over the ShinRa Electric Company..._

_... suspicion - was foul play involved? The..._

"So do you get it now?" Diz asked, from where he was refilling the soda dispenser (this time with fresh soda that hadn't expired yet).

"Someone offed the old man, that's what," Axel replied, his eyes now taking in the sight of Rufus on a flatbed truck, waving to the crowd during his inauguration parade, "But how did the killer get into the ShinRa mansion?"

"Think, Axel, think! Use those brains that the gods have given to you," Diz clucked his tongue, "Why would the Turks not have noticed an intruder?"

"You implying that it was an inside job?"

"I'm SAYING that it was an inside job."

"So the Turks killed him, then? Hardly surprising..."

Diz rolled his eyes, "Oh, for crying out loud... _Rufus_ is the killer, you dim-witted dolt."

Axel gaped at Diz, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly for a while.

"Yes, it's true. The Turks were his accomplices, and James Hojo, chief research assistant at the time, was the one who falsified the coroner's reports. All of them didn't like President ShinRa much, you see..."

"And you know all this how?" Axel's voice had returned to him, albeit with a hoarse edge to it, and he glared at Diz suspiciously, "You're pullin' my leg, aren't you? Tryin' to scare me away from ShinRa?"

"It's the truth, Axel," Diz answered, filling two mugs with hot, black coffee, "It's been a common incident for Rufus and his Turks, sometimes accompanied by Hojo, to come in here right before I close at 10, their clothes splattered liberally with blood. They always order liquor then, and they all pass-out in the pantry eventually."

"Hang on a minute - Rufus goes on assassination missions?"

"He _shot_ his _father_ up-close, kiddo. Many a time I've seen him polishing that shotgun of his right here in the shop. He's a pretty accurate shot, too, so your father and Tseng say," Diz leaned over the album, moving closer to Axel's ear, and resumed speaking, his tone little more than a deadly whisper, "Do you think you could do _that_? Pull the trigger on your father, Reno?"

Silence reigned in the room for several moments, heavy with tension and suppressed emotion. Without a word, Axel turned around abruptly, grabbed his bag, and walked briskly towards the door of Diz's Coffee Shop. He opened the door forcefully, before turning to glare at Diz fiercely.

"I will prove all of you wrong," the red-headed teen declared with a note of finality in his voice, "Just you see."

With those words, he left the shop, striding purposefully down the cobblestone sidewalks of Metronome Street.

Back in the coffee shop, Diz sighed, and put closed his aged photo album. Stowing it away under the counter, he looked at a small, framed picture that he had hung up on the wall close to the counter. It showed Sephiroth, Reno, Rude, and Tseng in their old, worn-out SOLDIER uniforms, with Rufus and James Hojo were by the side, noticeably different from the rest of them by the lab coat that he was wearing (with what looked suspiciously like somebody's fingers sticking out of one of its many pockets). Also in the picture with them was a Turk, included in the shot due to his status as their group leader - Reno, Rude, and Tseng had just been elected into the select ranks of the Turks. Hojo was their good friend, enough said. And Rufus was in the shot because he was the Vice-President...

He dug around under the counter for his telephone directory, and found the old book still in one piece, but with a thick layer of dust gracing its cover. Even in this modern day and age, what with it being the year 2017 and all, a good telephone directory was good for all occasions - if you added your own listings in the margins, that is. Blowing the dust off the massive volume, he sneezed, and opened up the directory. Searching the index until he found the entry that he wanted, he fished his cell phone out of his pocket, and started to dial.

Miles away, in the heart of Midgar's daily hustle and bustle, a phone rang. It rang several times, and yet no one picked it up. Finally, it went into voice-messaging mode.

_"Welcome to-"_

Diz hung up before the recording was finished playing. Within seconds, he had dialed another number.

A phone rang in an silent room, on a large desk. A hand snaked up from under the desk, and grabbed the receiver.

"Hello?"

"It's me," Diz said, relief evident in his voice.

"Ah, Diz! You old sidewinder, long time no see..."

"Indeed. Some day soon, we must get together before we end up pushing up daisies."

"HAH!" the person on the other end chuckled softly, as he usually did when amused, "That is so true. What's happening back there?"

Before either of them could speak, a second person in the office (who was also, curiously enough, under the desk) grabbed the phone's receiver and screeched into Diz's ear at a pitch that could only be described as supersonic.

"HI DIZ!"

"Ouch..." Diz winced on his end of the line, reflexively drawing back from his cell phone, and hitting his head on the wall, "Nice to see that you're healthy and well, Yuffie."

"Hmph!" Yuffie huffed, "Like the Great Ninja Yuffie could ever be down? Since when-"

Yuffie's companion snatched back the receiver, frowning at Yuffie, "Yuffie! Sorry about that, Diz..."

"I wasn't interrupting anything, was I?"

"Not yet. We were still at the making-out stage."

"Thank the gods you're a patient man."

"No big deal. But do make it quick... What's going on back there?"

"I have a certain problem, you see..."

xxx

The Timeless River was a natural border between Twilight Town and Midgar City, winding (seemingly) lazily like a fat, royal blue serpent between the two bustling cities. Despite its apparent sluggishness, it flowed at furious velocities, and many a person ahd drowned in the rushing blue currents of its lengthy expanses. At its narrowest point, it was twenty meters across, and at its widest, fifty. So, a ferry station had been built at a point where the river's velocity was the lowest, and the river spanned about thirty-five meters in width. The ferry, a small vessel which could only hold twenty passengers, was run by an elderly, unlikely duo, Messrs Mickey and Pete, station master and ferry captain respectively.

Here, it should be noted that Mickey was a short, bespectacled man who loved to draw cartoons to while away the quiet times at the station, and Pete was a hardcore drinker whose whiskey-breath was notorious for its potency. Interestingly enough, despite his habit of putting down alcohol as though it was water, he would always be sober enough to pilot the ferry (nameless since its first voyage) across the Timeless River safely.

Despite the nearly-mechanical efficiency with which the ferry service was run, not many people liked to use the vessel (possibly due to Pete's perpetual guzzling of what he liked to call 'the cough syrup of the gods'). Even when the ShinRa Electric Company took over the operations of the vessel a while back, and made the service free of charge, few bothered to use the ferry. In fact, some people on both sides of the river didn't even know that there WAS a ferry on their side of the Timeless River.

Some rumors claimed that Pete's whiskey-induced halitosis was to blame for the ferry's lack of popularity. The urban legends said that a man named Petrovich Gregorovitch once even committed suicide by jumping into the river after getting a heady whiff of Pete's odorous exhalations, courtesy of a mischievious wind-spirit that had blown a large cloud of the foul, liquor-scented air towards him.

Now, this ferry usually covered half-an-hour between stops. It took five minutes to cross the Timeless River, and stopped at each side for twenty minutes per stop. As Axel was storming out of Diz's shop, it was eight-fifty-two in the morning, and the ferry would be leaving the station on Twilight Town's side at eight fifty-five. However, it took at least five minutes to get from Diz's shop to the ferry station, maybe a minute or two less if you sprinted through the morning traffic that usually clogged-up the roads of Twilight Town's older regions.

Given current circumstances, it wasn't a big surprise that Axel could be seen making a mad dash for the ferry station, as the station master blew his whistle. The three short blasts of Mr. Mickey's whistle were promptly followed by Captain Pete answering in kind by honking with the ancient ferry's horn. As he ran up the ramp to the station, he saw Mickey casting-off the ferry, and the time-ravaged vessel moving sluggishly out of the station, engines purring softly. Twin trails of foam were already sprouting behind the ferry, as its propellers kicked into gear.

"WAIT!" he cried, vaulting over the chain that had been pulled across the boarding area's entrance, "I NEED TO GET ON THE FERRY!"

A man's head stuck out of the ferry's bridge window, looking amazingly canine due to the person's sagging cheeks and rosette-like clusters of burst blood capillaries all over his face. The man belched, and Axel actually drew back, as though Captain Pete's whiskey-breath had actually traveled across the thirty feet between them, to poison him with its foulness. The ferry captain's head disappeared back into the bridge, and a blast of static came out of the speaker installed on the ferry station's ceiling.

"SORRY KIDDO!" Captain Pete's cigarette-roughened voice came booming over the PA system, "THIS SHIP IS SAILIN' ALREADY! HAHAHA!"

"Relax, Axel," Mickey the station master added cheerily, after Axel's ears had stopped ringing, "It's only a half-hour wait. Pete'll be back here then."

"Oh, cripes..." Axel sat down dejectedly in one of the cracked plastic seats that had been bolted to the boarding area's floor for the last three decades or so, "I was hoping to beat the crowds..."

"Crowds?" Mickey echoed in bewilderment, "Is there something going on Midgar today? Our traffic hasn't increased today..."

"I need to get to-" Axel stopped himself in mid-sentence, "Somewhere important."

"Ah, well," Mickey clapped him on the back in a friendly manner, "Just wait till nine-twenty-five then. It's not too long a wait."

Axel nodded mutely, before slumping back down in his seat.

xxx

It seemed as though Time had deliberately slowed itself down to fuck with Axel's mind. Every time he glanced up at the large clock hung up on the ferry station's ancient wall, with the strips of paint peeling off all around it, the second hand seemed to be moving slower. Once, he swore that he could even see a shadow as Mickey jumped-off a ladder and tried to wind the clock backwards.

Axel was sure that the bloody midget would have done that for fucks, just to piss him off. He wouldn't have put it past the little bugger-

BLAAATTT!!!

He nearly jumped out of his seat when Pete blasted the ferry's great fog-horn, as he pulled the vessel into its berth neatly. Mickey hopped deftly onto the ferry's open deck, and threw the ferry's mooring lines neatly onto the station's derricks. As soon as the three thick lines were secured, Mickey hopped back onto the station's boarding area with a smile in Axel's direction.

"She's moored, Axel."

"Hurray," Axel mumbled in reply, eliciting a grin from Pete from up in the bridge, where he had been watching the red-headed teen step up to the ferry.

"WHAT'S THE MATTER, BUCKO?!" the portly captain bellowed, "BALLS TO THE WALLS?! HAH!"

"I'VE GOT NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE RAVIN' ABOUT, YOU OLD PERVE!"

"WHY YOU LITTLE-" Pete let out a series of loud belches, "I OUGHTA'-"

"Shut the fuck up," Axel replied casually, sitting down on one of the ferry's deck benches

Pete opened his mouth as if to say more, but contented himself with cursing the younger generation of today, which had no respect at all for their elders.

At nine-fifty, the ferry departed for Midgar's side of the river, crossing the turbulent waters at a leisurely pace.

xxx

Axel took a deep breath as he surveyed the sight before him. It wasn't that he hadn't seen the ShinRa HQ Building before, but this time, he was here with a _purpose_.

He stepped forward towards the revolving doors at the entrance, and promptly slammed into the glass pane with a SMACK!

As he stepped backwards, cursing whoever it was that had locked the door, a man in a Turk suit stepped towards him from one of the maintenance doorways that led to the stairwell of the skyscraper building.

"Axel Flynn?"

He looked at the Turk in disbelief, "Vin-"

"Come with me," the Turk named Vincent Valentine said in a flat tone of voice, "Now."

Axel let out a whimper, and followed Vincent into the building after the Turk had unlocked the revolving doors.

xxx

"So... Tell me what were you planning to do again?"

Axel felt like a prisoner-of-war. Vincent had strip-searched him, then tied him to a chair while he was still naked, and dangled a flickering light bulb in front of his face. The room had been darkened, and the red-eyed Turk was somewhere in the darkness around him. So far, he had been asked the most random of questions, such as his favorite food, whether he liked the Oprah Winfrey show, and a short discussion regarding the nature of a good blowjob.

"Damn, it Vincent!" he snapped, "I just wanted to apply for SOLDIER!"

"You what?" Vincent asked in tone that hinted at either disbelief, or that he wanted to rape Axel with a broom handle, "_You_ wanted to apply for SOLDIER?"

"And to become a Turk later, yeah," Axel replied flippantly, only to receive a powerful slap across the face from Vincent.

"_You are not fit to be a SOLDIER_!" Vincent growled at him, grabbing a fistful of his hair, "What more a Turk! You think just because you're Reno's kid, you can waltz in here like a fucking ballerina and-"

"I wrote to the school," Axel hissed, trying to ignore the pain from Vincent's enthusiatic pulling of his hair, "They don't expect me back on Monday."

"You did it for nothing, then," was Vincent's flat reply, "Cause Tseng and I sure wont be letting a fucking kid who thinks he's so matured into the Turks. SOLDIER's not under our jurisdiction, but Heidegger is a pansy - we could sway his picking against you if we want to."

"Why _wouldn't _I qualify for SOLDIER?" Axel retorted, earning another blow from Vincent.

"You're still a kid. A fucking kid," the Turk snarled, grabbing his throat with his deformed left hand, which was more like a claw than a hand, "Are you scared of death?"

Axel gulped at the sound of a gun's hammer cocking, and tried to maintain a brave face, "What's there to fear?"

"What if I did this," Vincent pressed the business-end of a pistol to Axel's forehead, "To your little sweet-cake, _Roxas_?"

"Leave Roxas out of this," Axel snapped, only to be laughed at by Vincent, "I'll fucking kill you if you hurt him!"

"You know... Some of the specimens Hojo breeds are vicious things indeed. Maybe we'll sic one or two of them on your little _Roxie _and let them have a good romp on his ass."

Without thinking, Axel kicked at Vincent's knee with his right leg, and hit home with a satisfying crunch. The Turk grunted, and stepped back, letting go of Axel's throat.

"You see... Emotional attachments are such weaknesses..." the messy-haired Turk chuckled, "But I like your spirit. Get yourself out of those ropes."

"How?"

"You're in SOLDIER, kid," Vincent replied nonchalantly, "Just did all this to see if you'd survive the shock test. Most people actually break-down when I ask them what a good blowjob is like. They think I'm some sort of homo rapist, meh! See you on Monday, six a.m. sharp, at Heidegger's office."

"What?! You mean I'm in?!"

Vincent snorted, "Thank that old man of yours."

"My dad?"

"No, Diz! If it wasn't for him calling me up personally and calling in some favors, I'd have thrown you out of Rufus' office window!"

With that, Vincent switched on the lights, and left a flabbergasted Axel in his office, tied to a chair, naked as he was on the day he had been born.

It was a long time before Axel got out of the knots binding him to Vincent's office chair.

It took an even longer period of time to figure out how he was going to break the news to his father.

Sure, Reno _might _have been proud that Axel was following in his footsteps to get enlisted in the ShinRa army. But then again, Reno might be pissed as heck because Axel had dropped out of school. But then again, education was over-rated... Or was it?

As he dressed himself, a thought occurred to him - Diz had petitioned to Vincent to get him into SOLDIER. The old man, despite telling him he lacked the proper personality to be a Turk, had gone out of his way to get Axel a place in SOLDIER.

He slowly walked on out of the Turks' office section, and stepped into the lift, pressing the button for the Ground floor.

Time seemed to slow down, and more conflicting thoughts came to his mind, for the three minutes the lift took to get to the ground floor.

It was a long walk home for Axel, during that hot afternoon.


	8. Eclipsed

**Eclipsed**

_"Why are you such a slacker when it comes to your studies? Your best grades are borderline credits at best, and the subjects you dislike are naught but borderline passes. It wouldn't hurt to emulate your twin brother a little more, you know! Zexion is, to be honest, the incarnation of the perfect student. He studies hard, does his work, and gets the grades that will get him away from this Town. With your current academic performance, you'd be hard-pressed to get a place in any of the institutions of higher learning beyond this sleepy hollow's horizons. Tell me; do you really want to be stuck in Twilight Town forever? I didn't think so. So buck up, kid, and act more like your brother!"_

- Quoted from Mr. Xemnas, Literature teacher at Twilight Town High, spoken to a student in his Sophomore-year class, Riku Nomura.

xxx

It is not uncommon for siblings to attend the same schools for the entire duration of their basic education. This is especially common among twins, who are close to each other by nature, and hence will be infinitely more comfortable if they were both in the same school, and even better, the same classes. Despite all these benefits of having them attending the same school, there are, as things usually have, a darker side to the whole, picture-perfect scene. Here, the point is about one sibling eclipsing the other with his or her natural abilities and brilliance. Unfortunately, most teachers are very prone to rubbing this into the aforementioned students' faces.

It's not that teachers are sadists. Oh, no, no, no... Well, except for a certain Miss Lani Euclid, Mr. Xemnas and their close friend Mr. Saix - all three of them maths teachers, coincidentally - most teachers are actually very caring towards their students. In fact, these teachers often remind their students of their (the student's) shortcomings compared to an older sibling or other relative that had once been a student in the same school. These reminders are made with the best of intentions, but in the end, all they usually bring about are resentful feelings, insecurity, and lowered self-esteem. Actually, the teachers do this to motivate their poorer students into performing better academically, but this doesn't always turn out the way they plan it to be.

But then again, it is often said the the road to Hell was paved with the kindest of intentions, is it not?

Riku Nomura was no exception to this phenomenon. His fraternal twin brother, Zexion, was a genius. Or at least, something close to being one, seeing as how he could handle advanced mathematics and science at a level close to that of Senior-year high school students. It seemed that by being born just fifteen minutes earlier, Zexion had gotten most of the brains and shrewdness thrown into the deal, while Riku had gotten more of the looks and the height that were there to be taken. However, being tall and a looker didn't help him much in his academic life, nor did they help him get a girlfriend, either.

At this point, it should be made known that sexual orientation-wise, Riku was about as straight as a bell-shaped curve. The physically-bent person would be a certain Professor James Hojo, who has had a mild case of idiopathic scoliosis since the later half of his teenage years. So even his love life was dull, what with him being gay and all that good shit.

No one ever said that high school was easy. Riku could testify to that.

xxx

"Alright," Mr. Saix announced from the front of his class, "Here are the scores for your mid-term exams. I must say, your class is quite above-average... In _failing_ my tests! All of you failed with flying colors this time..."

Groans and muttered curses as well as resigned sighs filled the classroom, as the blue-haired teacher handed-out his students' marked exam papers. Everyone saw how much red ink there was on the returned scripts, and felt a collective pang of despair as they realized that their best efforts hadn't been sufficient to get past 'Saix the Sadist's' mid-term test.

To make things worse, the ferocious and possibly carnivorous Geometry teacher had decided to make comments on, and speak-out the marks of each sheet that he handed back.

"Forty-one! Work on your circular theorems..."

"Thirty-five! Remember your parallel lines?"

"Fifty-four! Decent, but next time label your proofs with the theorem names..."

"_Twenty-seven_. You'll just have to work harder, period," said Saix, as he threw down a red-filled answer script at Riku, "Curious... Zexion scored seventy-eight on this same test..."

Riku grit his teeth, "I'm not Zexion's clone, you know..."

Saix laughed harshly, sounding more like a deranged, rabid dog than a mirthful man, "That I can see. And very obviously, you _didn't cheat_! HAH!"

Riku settled for glaring at an ancient scratch on his desk that had probably been made by a pair of compasses, as the satisfied Geometry teacher moved-on, cheerfully calling-out the next marks and faults on his list.

"Axel, you have a flaming set of hair, and an equally flaming tendency to screw-up your work! _Eight!_"

xxx

Riku trudged his way to Diz's, absently noting the increasing gloominess of the thunder-heads that ponderously moved across the sky directly above him. Zexion had gone on home to finish up one of his extra-credit projects, which he still found the time to do despite the mind-numbing amounts of homework that the teachers at Twilight Town High were so fond of dumping on their students' heads like a whole shit-load of bricks. Personally, Riku took the large amounts of homework as a sign that his teachers were all undersexed, lifeless, and/or soulless.

Well, except for Zidane and Mrs. Garnet; those two had even been caught in one of the school's broom closets before, and a grinning Zidane's excuse of 'doing biological research for the good of mankind' had not been bought by a red-faced Principal Maleficent, who really did look quite lovely once her pale face had colored up with a little red.

Just as he turned the corner into Metronome Street, there was an almighty explosion of thunder, preceded briefly by a massive bolt of lighting that lanced towards the ground in a brilliant flash. Within a heartbeat, the skies opened-up, and rain came pouring down in torrents, fat droplets of water splattering off all manner of flat surfaces as they fell from the swollen bellies of the overhead clouds.

Biting back a curse that would have made Namine blush, Riku dashed for the shaded five-foot-way in front of Diz's Coffee Shop, just ten feet away from him. Just as he reached the edge of the walkway, a car drove past him, splashing him liberally with the water from beneath its wheels, and leaving him even wetter than he had been, something which he had thought to be impossible just seconds ago.

"GOD DAMN IT!" he snarled, before walking up to Diz's front door, and throwing the ancient door open.

The little bell hung above the door jingled cheerfully as he stormed through the doorway, startling Diz. The elderly proprietor jumped as Riku suddenly entered his shop, and put down the newspapers he had been reading.

"Ah, Riku!" Diz smiled, "Thought it was the Thing from Timeless River, hah! Need a towel to dry-off?"

"Thanks, but nah," the silver-haired teen sighed, running a hand through his sopping-wet hair in a gesture that might have made some of the more guy-crazy girls in school fall into fits of convulsive drooling, "It'll dry on its own."

"Pish posh, preposterous!" said Diz dismissively, as he threw a clean towel at Riku, from somewhere in the bowels of his under-counter cupboard, "Wipe yourself, at least your head; don't want no one getting the whooping coughs or pneumonia while in here. No, siree! Not under my watch, heh!"

"Thanks, dude," Riku muttered, catching the towel deftly in mid-air, and proceeding to vigorously dry his hair with it, "Don't know how we managed to get along life before we found you."

"Very miserably, apparently," Diz replied with a chuckle, "You lot were the personal victims of those three douchebags."

Riku let out a 'hmph' and sat down behind one of the tables, picking up his soaking wet bag from the floor where he'd dropped it, "Aww, man!"

"Wet books?"

"I hope not..." Riku whimpered, only to see that this was indeed the case after he had unzipped his bag. Every single jotter book in his bag had been wet nice and thoroughly with rainwater from the obscenely emotional - probably menopausal - clouds that had decided to piss on him just now, "FUCK!"

"Tsk, tsk, Riku, such language!" Diz chided, "Do you write with a ball-point pen?"

"What?! My books are _ruined_, and you want to know what I use to _write_?"

"Relax, kiddo," Diz airily said, "Ball-point pen ink doesn't smudge as badly as gel pen ink does when wet, that's why. And get a load of this; hair-dryer."

"Huh?"

The blond shopkeeper stuck a hand under the counter, and pulled out an ancient-looking handheld hair-dryer, which had probably been white once upon a time, but was now a dirty shade of yellow much like that which was commonly seen on derelict public toilet bowls and sinks which hadn't been used (or washed) in god-knows-how-long.

"Hair-dryer plus wet books," Diz declared triumphantly, "Equals _dry_ books. Hahaha!"

Riku looked confused for a moment, before letting a small smile grace his expression, "Gosh, Diz. Thanks a load!"

"Nothing to it. Catch!" Diz threw the old hair-dryer at Riku, who caught it and searched for a power outlet to plug it into. Finally finding one, he plugged the machine in, and flipped the toggle switch to the mark labeled as 'ONE'.

At first, the hair-dryer remained inactive, not showing any visible signs of starting itself. After a few seconds, Diz sighed.

"The blasted thing's acting up again. Whack it."

"Eh?"

"Hit it, and maybe you'll knock the heating element into alignment with the circuit-work."

"Ah," Riku nodded in comprehension, and thumped the hair-dryer once with his palm. The device let out several sputtering noises, before starting itself with a sound that could have been described as a mild roar at the very least, bits of unidentifiable dirt flying out of its business end as the metallic coils of its heating element made contact with the internal electrical works of the device.

He brought the hair-dryer over his wet English book, and proceeded to try and blow it dry. As he did so, he noticed that Diz was right - his writing was still legible to a point, and hadn't been to badly smudged by the horrible rainfall.

Diz, ever one to pull uncanny bits of trivia about people out of thin air (like with Marluxia, whom he had hooked up with Larxene) suddenly asked Riku cheerily, "So what's eatin' at you? You seem more emo than Zexion, and heck, I'd say even your father. No mean feat, that."

Riku narrowed his eyes, as he dried another page in his English book, "I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Well, you refused to dry yourself, initially," Diz pointed out, "And you _love_ your hair, so you would want that . _Very_ suspicious behavior."

"Wha- what?! I don't love my hair _that_ much!" Riku sputtered, nearly dropping the hair dryer during the course of his bumbling response.

"Don't you dare drop that hair-dryer, Riku! It was blowing many things dry since long before your _father_ went and got blown in a McMoogles drive-in! He got caught, too!"

"I find that particular sentence to be extremely wrong and highly disturbing, Diz."

"Eh, semantics! Grammar is for pansies!" the elderly man waved a hand around to gesture towards his washroom, "Keep the perfect English in there, will you? Now, what's bothering you?"

"None of your business, ayuh."

"It is my business when I see you looking like James Hojo did when his sweetheart ran-off with a Turk named Vincent Valentine. Pretty thing named Lucrecia, I remember."

"Nah, it ain't girl problems," Riku removed his dry English book from beneath the hair-dryer's stream of hot air, and placing his drenched Physics book there in its former place.

"Aha! So there _is _something wrong!"

"Rats! You are too good at this, Diz. Are you a hypnotist or something?"

"Nope - just a cunning ol' bastard who has dealt with three generations of kids like you and seen it all before."

Riku sighed, turning off the hair-dryer for a moment, letting it cool down for a bit. He turned to look at Diz, and frowned.

"I'm second-rate, that's why."

"Second-rate?" Diz echoed, sounding puzzled, "Whatever do you mean?"

"Zexion does everything that I can do, and he's always better than me," the silver haired teen practically snarled, "Perfect Zexion, never screws up anything..."

"Oh, he does mess things up," Diz said, wiping his reading glasses with the same, filthy rag that he used to wipe the tables and counter top, "Demyx being a case in point."

Riku nearly threw his hands up in the air in frustration, aborting the notion solely because of the hair dryer he was training on his soggy Physics book, that had just been turned on again, "Argh, Diz! Relationships are difficult enough that EVERYONE screws them up!"

"Good point," Diz conceded, "But Zexion is particularly clueless when it comes to relationships. What if I told you that there were condoms involved in the whole fiasco, huh?"

"You mean..." Riku's mood visibly perked-up at the thought of blackmail material against Zexion, "That Zexion and Demyx were fucking?"

"Not fucking! No, no, no..." Diz had a wide smirk of his face now, "They didn't even get there."

"Then what's all this nonsense about condoms, then?"

Diz laughed, "Promise you'll keep this confidential, will you?"

"Got it." Riku nodded in agreement, though the unspoken phrase of, 'Zexion is is _sooo _fucked...' lingered in his mind, regardless of the fact that said silver-haired twin was probably still a virgin.

"Zexion..." Diz began, his tone suggesting at an outcome which Riku could nearly foresee, "Put it on backwards."

"WHAT?!" Riku doubled-over laughing, upon hearing of his supposedly smarter twin's blunder, "Seriously, he did that?!"

"Demyx said so," his companion replied cheerfully, "And he was pretty pissed about it, too. They only had one condom, apparently. And Zexion was too scared of any sexually-transmitted diseases to go ahead and top him without a rubber on. The two of them came in here with the biggest cases of blue balls I've seen in a while..."

He was about to say more, but any further words from him were cut-off by Riku's maniacal cackling. Diz scrutinized the laughing teen suspiciously, and felt a minor chill run up his spine upon seeing and hearing the rest of Riku's laughing fit.

Hell, there were certain types of laughs in Riku's repertoire of cackles, giggles, and chuckles that were creepier than those out of a cheap, B-grade horror movie.

"Umm... Kid, you all right?"

"What? Oh yes, I ALL-right!" Riku cackled, "Zexion is sooo-"

"Confidential, Riku!"

"Details, details," Riku scoffed, "Time to give the dude a balls-up bashing he'll never forget!"

"You gay guys are a scary bunch, sometimes," Diz commented, before stowing his glasses away and taking out a pair of nail clippers.

"Like you're not gay?"

"I am not, Riku. Miss Scarlet would agree."

"You're kidding. _The_ Miss Scarlet from the weapons shop down the street? The old lady with pistols hidden in her knickers? "

"I believe there is only one, yes. Though how you know about the pistols is questionable, at the very least."

"So it is her, then. And the pistols were confiscated last month. Some sap tried to hold her up."

"The poor thing. Arm or leg?"

"She clipped him in the left testicle, apparently. The feds found it splattered all over his pants."

Diz winced, feeling the pain all men feel when told about any form of male genital abuse, "Ouch."

Silence returned to the shop for a while, save for the sound of the hair dryer as Riku switched it off for a bit, to prevent the old dear from overheating. Diz finished clipping his fingernails, before clearing his throat and speaking up again, "You know, if there's one thing I've learned after living all this while, it's that people are unique."

"Oh?" Riku nodded his head curiously, as he flipped the pages in his damp Physics jotter.

"Some people have the brains for studying. Some others have the ear for music. Yet some others have a soft, burning flame in them that never goes out, no matter how much difficulty they are put through."

"But Saix said..."

"You'll never get out of Twilight Town? That's an old one."

"Exactly! I'm not fussed about being second best, but... Being trapped is another thing altogether. Much scarier."

"Saix has been saying that since he started teaching. He's been wrong many times."

Riku sighed, "But it's a true statement, mostly. Can't go nowhere right here..."

"Who said you have to go anywhere else to be happy?"

"It's about the JOBS, Diz-"

"A higher-end job doesn't always equate to happiness, Riku."

A thunderclap stopped either of them from saying anything more after that. Riku switched the hair dryer on again, and Diz put his nail clippers away, his face impassive.

"You'll have to ask yourself, Riku; what is it you seek in life? Is it happiness? Success? Money? Sex? If you can answer that question, you'll be ready to stay or leave, whatever Saix might think."

"You're a born-and-bred native," Riku retorted, "No offense, but what would you know about trying to move beyond this sleepy hollow of a town?"

Diz looked at him levelly, "Sometimes, Riku, it can be just as difficult to stay as it is to leave."

"Huh?"

"This one you'll have to SWEAR to keep quiet, alright?"

"Right..."

"No jokes, this one's for real."

"Okay, then..."

Diz looked out of the window into the driving rainstorm, as though trying to discern images from the blurry mess, "About thirty-three years ago, I was a new kid on the block here. Moved here from the other end of town, to get away from the folks."

"Away from the folks?"

"Old stories, kid. After the Cold War, things in Twilight Town never quite recovered fully. Some people still hate me cause my father was on the other side. So here I was, with my shop, barely breaking even. It even came to a point where I was almost forced to close this shop."

Riku flipped another few dried pages of his book, "So what happened?"

"I could have left; there was a vacancy at Lumierre's Kitchen all the way up North. But In the end, I decided that it wasn't the job I wanted. Here, I was struggling to get by, but at least, I was happy, living in my hometown. Worried, yes. But happy also."

"How did things recover from that?"

"Yen Sid and I eventually started running an illegal business selling dirty magazines under the counter for a while. Once we were well-established enough, we stopped the sales and referred our customers to the bookshop down the road for their kinky comics and whatnot. Unethical, but it saved this shop."

"That... doesn't sound possible..."

"People are curious things, Riku. Some tend to be assholes, but in general, most of us are friendly enough and practice a respectable amount of customer loyalty. So you see, kid. I decided that I wanted to stay home, and I did what I had to do to get that. But you... You'll need to ask yourself if you _really_ want to leave Twilight Town."

Riku had no response to those words. He merely stared at the slowly drying pages of his jotter, before turning off the dryer again to let it rest.

"Anyway, it's a little early to be thinking about all that. You've still got two more years in high school to be done with, and that's plenty."

"But..."

"Do what you can, decide what you want to do, and let the rest take care of itself, Riku. Take it from an old crocodile that had to sell magazines with names like 'Mistress Ilsa's Dungeon' and 'Farmsex'."

"_Farmsex_?"

"Well, we did have some customers who liked those a lot. Who knew that bestiality was so popular around these parts?"

"And it looks like the rain's starting to ease up a little." Indeed, the raging rainstorm, formerly akin to atmospheric diarrhea, was now just a little more than a pleasant shower.

Diz squinted out of the display window, "Aye, it be letting up. Keep at those books, son. And let the dryer rest- OH, HELL NO!"

"What?"

"YOUR BOOK IS ON FIRE!"

Riku yelped, reflexively throwing the hair dryer at the smoking Physics jotter. The ancient instrument hit the damp book with a dull THUD, before cracking along the edge of its plastic shell. Bits of debris burst out of its blowing nozzle, before it died with a choking sputter. The Physics book, now in contact with the dryer's corroded heating element, decided to make things a little more lively by catching on fire.

In short, it was a mighty clusterfuck of an incident for a hair dryer's demise.

"MY BOOK! WATER!"

"MY HAIR DRYER!"

With a cheerful hissing noise, the sprinklers on the ceiling started spraying out copious amounts of water out as they finally picked up on the smoke that had risen to their metal muzzles.

xxx

Half an hour later found Riku walking home, his shirt singed at the edges and generally reeking of smoke. Diz had managed to turn off the sprinklers eventually, and the poor old hair dryer had been given a proper send-off; Diz had closed up his shop for a bit, and taken the abused dryer to the Timeless River for a decorated burial at sea. Riku's books were wetter than they had been after the rainstorm, and Diz was busy mourning the loss of his beloved hair dryer. To say that Riku was in a bad mood would have been the understatement of the century.

"Yo, Riku!" called out a familiar voice from behind him, "What up?"

He turned to look, and saw Axel walking towards him, decked out in a rumpled white dress shirt and black slacks, with a matching pair of... sneakers; a criminal offense for the fashion police, that's for sure.

"Nothing's up," he replied glumly, "Just that I'm a down-and-out useless doofus that can't do anything that Zexion can't."

"Ah, sibling rivalry," Axel sighed, running a hand through his red mane of hair, which he had started to grow out, "Might be wrong there, though."

"Huh?"

"There was this incident with a condom..."

"Ah, heard about that one from Diz. Is it really that famous?"

"Damn straight it is. Mr. Tribal was going to post up notices in school, I think."

"Hardy har har. Now shoo, Axel. I've got to get home and dry my books off."

"Rainstorm got you, eh?"

"Fuck, it did! Books are wetter than the bottom of the damn river."

"Chillax, dude. It'll all be alright."

"Easy for you to say, you're a Turk-in-training now! And what the hell is a 'chillax'?"

"Chill," Axel said, thumping him on the back happily, "And relax! A lovelier two-in-one deal you'll never see!"

"You're psychotic, you know that?"

"You missed out neurotic, schizophrenic, and eccentric."

Riku shook his head, "You're IMPOSSIBLE!"

"As I should be!"

"BYE, Axel!"

"Okay then! Say hello to Zexy for me."

"... you call him Zexy?"

"What about it?"

"Oh, SHUT UP!"

xxx

Saix glared at his class, baring his fang-like teeth.

"So..."

Since Lani had been retired due to the myocardial infarction she had suffered from, he had been determined to become known as the fiercest teacher in Twilight Town High.

"Only three of you passed this one. I have nothing more to say... For now, that is!"

He picked up the sheaf of test papers from his desk, and began handing them back to the students, with his usual comments being fired like cannonballs at those who had been unfortunate enough to fail his test.

Finally, he came to Riku, and he slammed a red-marked sheet down on the desk, "Forty-five. An improvement, but still a disappointment."

"It doesn't matter," Riku said quietly, as the Geometry teacher walked away.

And indeed, from his point of view, things were in a different light now. in that new light, Geometry mattered very little. Living in the shadow cast by Zexion's accomplishments was irrelevant now.

Riku smiled as he recalled what he had thought about for the last three weeks. In the end, he decided that what mattered most to him was making a difference.

One month later, as he and Sora left the Twilight Town Park after having some uninterrupted time together, he decided that things were fine as they were.


	9. Detachment

**Detachment**

_"Having a detachment from your emotions is very useful if you plan to have a successful career in the Sciences. As a matter of fact, having a lack of emotional sensitivity is a good precursor to developing the professional, clinical mindset of a decent scientist. Of course, there are some scientists who are extremely emotional to the point of being ridiculous, but know this - they retain their working positions only because of their SUPERB performance. I must admit here that I am by no means the greatest of the scientists out there. The reason why I've outlasted or bested so many of my peers is simply because I do not give my emotions any control over my actions. It's that simple."_

- Quote from Professor James Hojo, extracted from a speech given as part of the orientation program for Midgar University's 2009 batch of freshmen for the Science courses.

xxx

He had read the complete speech given by Professor Hojo to the Science course freshmen. And he had decided that indeed, having an emotional detachment from your work was a good step to take in the pursuit of academic excellence. He had little taste for the things most other teenagers found amusing, such as television, video games, and even girls. Honestly, Zexion found such things to be boring, mainly because they offered little benefit in the way of improving his chances of making it as the valedictorian of his class. Every time he heard of someone skiving-off school work to engage in such time-wasting activities, he would merely smirk at their juvenile behavior, and then resume whatever it was that he had been doing.

Well, the bit about girls being boring was not entirely due to his studiousness. And it was not due to any form of hormonal disorders, either. In that respect, Zexion was a perfectly normal teenage human male, who didn't suffer from a lack of biochemical materials that left some unfortunate souls measuring their woefully inadequate penises in locked bathrooms, or whose faces exploded into veritable replicas of the moon's crater-studded surface. He _was _a little shortchanged in the height department (length- and girth-wise Zexion Junior was satisfactory, based on the statistics he had dug up), but otherwise, hormonally, he was identical to every other male teenager out there on the streets.

Any other GAY teenager you might find on the streets, that is. Hence, he had a valid reason to not bother trying to win the hearts of girls, and as such, he had full freedom to focus on his studies. But those who knew of his sexual orientation often questioned the reasons for his apparent lack of emotions and asexual nature. And of course, either way, Zexion didn't give a single, stinking drop of shit what they thought about him, or what they said behind his back.

xxx

"- and so, by applying the basic concepts of Boolean algebra and logic, we can prove that the complement of the intersection of the two sets..." Mr. Garland Genesis lectured his students, as he sketched a circular Venn diagram on the chalkboard to illustrate the sets and subsets he was using for his explanation, "... is a subset to the union between the complements of both individual sets, HENCE proving De Morgan's Law of sets."

Half the class seemed to be in a state of torpor, and the students making up the other half were either paying rapt attention or doodling aimlessly in their notebooks. As would be expected, one of those few students who was _not_ doodling or drooling on his desk was Zexion.

"Now, I know that half of you piss-wits aren't paying attention here," said Garland, sounding somewhat miffed. Falling back on one of his contingency plans for dealing with inattentive students, he called out the first of their names that came to mind, "Zexion!"

"Yes, sir?" the slate-haired teen replied, after underlining the solution to the mathematical problem written on the board by his teacher.

"Based on this diagram here," Garland gestured to the white-lined sketches on the board, "How could you define set B being subtracted from set A?"

Zexion blinked, as the answer clicked in his mind, "Set A intersecting with the complement of set B, sir."

"Very good," nodded the white-haired maths teacher, his eyes glinting with a hint of sadism, "All of you really should be more like this sweet child here. Studious and disciplined!"

"He's got IQ," called out one of the girls in the class, with a giggle, "But his EQ is about the same as that of a snail!"

The entire class save for Garland and Zexion burst into rapturous laughter, despite the fact that half of the jocks in the small room probably had no idea what the Hell it was that made IQ distinct from EQ. Zexion merely looked bored, and started to scribble something in the margins of his notebook. Garland, never one to take such disorder in his class lying down, turned a most fascinating shade of red.

"ALL OF YOU!!!" he boomed, scaring the class into silence - old men that looked like exhumed corpses weren't supposed to be able to shout that loud, were they now? - and fixing a nasty glare at all of them, "SPOT TEST, TOMORROW!"

As if suddenly unafraid of their furious teacher, the students started to groan and moan at the announcement that a test would be held on the next day.

"Stupid Zex-" was heard from one of the jocks, only to be silenced by the old teacher's crisp words.

"The test tomorrow will cover the concepts of Boolean Algebra, Sets, and also Basic Probability," he announced, just as the bell rang, "Whoever fails this one... I'll just hand you over to Mr. Saix for punishment, since he is _always_ willing to oblige such requests. Class dismissed."

One-by-one, the students left the classroom, the room becoming steadily emptier until only Zexion remained there with Garland.

"Zexion, my boy," the teacher asked kindly, "Are you alright?"

"Yes, sir," he nodded, as he rose out of his seat, having finished packing his books away into his sling-bag, "All is well with me."

Garland fixed a pointed stare at Zexion, "I've heard rumors about you, Zexion. And they're quite worrisome."

"Oh?" the question was polite enough, but a distinct note of hostility was discernible beneath the smooth exterior of Zexion's voice.

"You need to realize, my boy, that studies don't define your teenage life," Garland said softly, as he wiped the board with his ancient duster, "Enjoy your youth while you can."

"What is the point? Wasting time by engaging in most of the activities considered to be leisurely... It has no benefits for me."

"Go home, child," said Garland, as he dumped his duster into the small bucket that was placed next to his desk, "And think it over. Your teenage years will never come again, and you're quite nearly out of them now."

"Very well, sir."

Zexion left the classroom, and Garland watched his retreating back until the door closed behind it. Sitting down behind his large teacher's desk, he stuck his right hand into his trouser pocket and took out a battered leather wallet. Opening it, he gently pulled out a faded photograph of a entire class of students, all smiling at the camera.

"Believe me, Zexion," he whispered to no one in particular, "There is more to life than mere studies."

He himself was not in the picture, having been busy with an assignment that day. But now, thirty-seven years later, he realized that when he looked back at his teenage years, he saw nothing but endless pages of equations.

A single tear dropped onto the old photograph.

xxx

As it had done for countless other customers, the little copper bell bolted to the front door of Diz's Coffee Shop chimed out an alert to the eccentric proprietor as soon as Zexion pushed the door open. Sticking his head out of the kitchen, Diz managed to get a quick glance of his newest patron of the day before he returned to scrambling some eggs for one of the other customers currently seated in the shop. Today, there had been an unusually large number of customers, and Diz's little stove had been busy since about nine in the morning.

"Take a seat, kiddo!" he called from the kitchen, "Be with you in a minute!"

"It's alright, Diz," Zexion replied, walking carefully past two tables of customers, "I'll fix my own tea."

"Don't break the pot, that's all I'm saying."

"Understood."

A teaspoon of oven-dried tea leaves was tipped into a ceramic mug, and some boiling water poured over it. Zexion swirled the mixture a bit, letting the tea brew, and also allowing for the water to bring out the flavor in the shriveled little leaves. Finally, he topped the mug up with some lukewarm water, and stirred in some sugar and milk. Now he would let it sit for a bit, to allow the tea to become really aromatic.

"Scrambled eggs, coming up!" Diz announced, as he walked out of the kitchen holding a large plate of scrambled eggs, that positively dripped with ketchup, "Irvine, how you can digest this stuff, I have no idea..."

"REAL men eat ketchup, Diz!" guffawed one of the seated customers - a man in a cowboy hat with a long ponytail - as he dropped his boot-clad feet to the floor, "And about damn time I got some service, you ol' sonofawhore!"

Diz smirked, "The feeling's mutual, Irvine. And if I catch you with your feet up on ANY of my tables ever again, there's an interesting photograph I have-"

"EGAD!" Irvine cried, holding up both of his hands in a defensive pose, ANYTHING but that! I'll keep them on the floor from now on, I swear!"

"Enjoy the eggs, bucko."

Zexion merely smirked from where he was behind the counter, waiting for his tea to settle. Irvine Kinneas was a bouncer for one of the pubs further down the street, and he _always_ ordered his favorite dish of scrambled eggs smothered in ketchup whenever he dropped in for a bite at Diz's Coffee Shop. He also tended to put his filthy, boot-wearing feet up on the table when Diz wasn't looking, and today was one of the rare occasions when the wily old cook had managed to catch him in the act, so to speak. And there was always mention of an 'interesting photograph', and Irvine's frantic apologies usually followed.

Diz had shown them the picture once; it showed Irvine in a sleeveless cocktail dress with a plunging neckline, apparently after a lost bet with Tifa, who ran the bar where he worked.

Admittedly, the hairy armpits and chest made the picture rather obscene, but Diz kept it on hand for blackmail purposes. Or for when the cowboy put his feet up on the tables.

His tea finally done, Zexion moved to one of the smaller, vacant tables, and took out his homework for the day.

xxx

"So, Zexion... Not going with your bunch to the beach tomorrow afternoon?" Diz asked, as he finished washing the dishes from his earlier customers, which had all paid and left a while ago now, "The weather forecast is good for this tomorrow afternoon."

"Can't," Zexion muttered, as he scribbled his way through an essay for Miss Trepe, "Got an extra credit project to do for Mr. Xigbar's class."

"Extra credit is good, but this isn't healthy, Zexion. You are not developing normally for a young man."

"What do you mean? Puberty-"

"Puberty," Diz interrupted, "Also includes emotional development and the building of people skills, as well as socializing. Sadly, you seem to be neglecting all that."

"That statement is wrong to the last-"

"Is it really? What about last month's outing to the Midgar botanical gardens? Two weeks ago, to go camping for the weekend in the forest reserve? Last week, to catch a movie?"

"Look, Diz," Zexion said exasperatedly, "Mr. Garland already gave me this lecture just now-"

"You know, you might be book-smart and very civilized in that regard, but you're an emotional caveman."

Zexion's mouth opened and closed several times, and his face flushed with what looked like a mixture of embarrassment and also an attempt to look indignant. Shaking his head in frustration, he looked back at his work, and began wrapping-up his essay on the practical applications of Pascal's Principle. Within half an hour, he left the shop, even though his work was not completed yet. He had paid for his tea, and then left without a word.

Diz looked at the half-empty mug with a pitiful gaze, before tipping the rest of the tea down the sink.

xxx

As soon as he got home, Zexion made a beeline for his bedroom, and dumped his schoolbag next to his study desk. Sitting down on the edge of his bed, he decided that today had been most annoying, what with all those people questioning him about his emotional development. He had never bothered with feelings; they were too troublesome to be dealt with. And even the most complex of the subjects he studied could never match up to the sheer difficulty of handling emotions well.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a loud THUMP! startled him out of his reverie. He very nearly jumped off his bed in surprise, before hearing the groaning and moaning from the other side of the wall behind his headboard. Getting up and walking over to the rather thin wall, he thumped a fist against it.

"Riku, kindly stop trying to break through the wall."

"You're just jealous that I have someone to romp with!" came the haughty reply, somewhat muffled as it moved through the wall, "Sora, where are your manners? Say hello!"

"Hell... Hello..." Sora's voice was heard, "AH!!!"

"Fuck yeah... Take it, bitch!"

"I know that you two would enjoy it a lot, but the sodomy laws _were _written for a reason, you know."

"Like you're THAT innocent, Zexion... You'd tap Demyx's ass if you could!"

"Wha... I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"You'd probably tie him down, knowing how kinky you are, and you'd do this to him!"

"SHIT!" Sora cried out, just as the bed's headboard slammed against the wall with a particularly loud WHUMP!

"Or maybe something like this!" THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

"RIKUUU!!!"

"HELL, YOU'D SCREW HIM INTO A WHEELCHAIR, YOU... _FUCKING... PERV!!!" _SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! CRAAACCCKKK!!!

"FUCK-" Sora - a VERY vocal lay if there ever had been one - had his loud groans cut-off halfway by whatever violent and perverse things Riku was putting him through, much to Zexion's relief. And it sounded as if the poor bed had finally been abused to the point of breaking one of its wooden parts, too.

Zexion shook his head in frustration, before walking over to his desk and grabbing his headphones. Plugging them into his ears, he dug around for his CD player. Finding the little machine, he hooked them up, and pressed 'PLAY'. Within seconds, he was blissfully submerged in a world of violins, pianos, and guitars. Sitting down at his desk, he felt something hit one of the little table's legs. Something _solid_.

Letting out a groan, he tried to think of something that was bland but also engrossing. If there was one thing that was for sure, it was that he most definitely couldn't finish his homework with an erection in his trousers and naughty thoughts of Demyx engaged in the most carnal of acts filling his head.

After nearly ten minutes of mentally running through his History notes and the Periodic Table of the Elements, he finally managed to get his... problem under control. Pulling out his homework once again for the second time that day, he flipped the top-most book open, and sat down to try and make sense of the problem.

The question made no sense.

He read it again, and again. And again. And each time, the words spoken by Diz and Mr. Garland rand out loud in his mind, his perfect memory replaying their words in haunting detail.

_"What about last month's outing to the Midgar botanical gardens? Two weeks ago, to the forest reserve? Last week, to catch a movie?"_

Extra credit assignments were more important than mere outings to go gallivanting!

_"You need to realize, my boy, that studies don't define your teenage life."_

Yes, they did!

_"You know, you might be book-smart and very civilized in that regard__, but you're an emotional caveman."_

He had never felt as insulted-

_What's the matter, Zexion? Can't handle the truth? You're nothing but a damned machine... Reading, memorizing, studying-_

"STOP IT!"

With that, he ripped out his headphones, the sublime notes of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata abruptly giving way to silence, and the vigorous horizontal calisthenics next door also stopped in its tracks. Time seemed to stand still for that short while, given how silent the room was.

Riku's worried voice came through the wall once again, "Zexion, are you alright?"

"What happened?" Sora asked, sounding confused.

For the first time in a while, Zexion was unable to answer a question that had been asked of him.


	10. Acceptance

**Acceptance  
**

_"You need to consider that __maturity is not something you can get overnight. And I'd say that such a situation is appropriate, given that it's more like a paradigm shift that changes your outlook on life and the world in general._ _When you can look at a conflict and see both sides of the argument, __you have taken your first step towards maturity. When you can see a person with many problems as a fellow human being and not as a waste of space, you might have taken your next steps towards maturity. But for me personally, I believe that maturity is only truly achieved when a person accepts their own self for who they are, and from there, progresses to accept others as they are also. This is simply because it can be extremely difficult to accept life as it is, to a point where some people even die before acceptance comes to be part of them. Forgiveness, understanding... the two of them and so many other admirable qualities are all rooted in acceptance and maturity. So that's why I always say that acceptance usually equates to maturity; other factors may also come into the equation, but none have as big a role as the paradigm shift necessary for gaining acceptance._

- Quoted from Mr. Magus Merlin, chief guidance counselor at Twilight Town High School, spoken to the Senior classes of the year 2010 during a motivational speech.

xxx

_"Who's your daddy, huh?"_

_"How come you don't have no daddy?"_

She had grown up as an only child in a single-parent home, and those two questions were part and parcel of her early childhood. Money had been tight for the most part, so she had gotten used to wearing secondhand clothes from garage sales and warehouse stock clearances. The fact that she had to wear clothes made for males didn't irk her in the least; it was just part of growing up for her. But at times, she did wonder why her father was never around for her. At first, she used to draw little cartoons of her father, mother, and self being together. But when her mother found out and veritably let her temper explode like the legendary Mount Gulug, she stopped drawing altogether. Several times, she had asked her mother about the whereabouts of her father. Each and every time, the answer had been the same.

_"Useless son of a bitch is dead."_

As a little girl, she had accepted her mother's answer as the gospel truth, and shed her fair share of tears over her father's death. But as she grew older, she began to question her mother's answers to that one question. So one day, when her mother had left for work, she had decided to do some digging about for the truth. She found one of her old drawings, the pastel colors smeared and smudged with several years' worth of silent tears, and a faded photograph of her mother and a man with spiky blond hair. The man's face had been blackened out with a marker, so the only clue she had left as to the identity of her father was that he apparently had blond hair. She was assuming, of course, that he _was_ her father; but then again, why else would her mother have obscured his face?

Of course, when her mother came home, she found out; Turks knew everything that happened around them, and had ways of finding out if anything was amiss. The resulting stare-down with her mother had been tense, and she was prepared to leave the house for several nights if worse came to worse. But her mother had been surprisingly quiet after that, only leaving her a note on her dresser with an address written on it.

Which is how Larxene found herself outside the bar called Tifa's Seventh Heaven_._

xxx

"Bar's closed," Tifa called out, as the door opened. The sign outside the door clearly stated the establishment's business hours, but sometimes, those drunkards couldn't read after getting sufficiently inebriated, "Come back at about six-"

"I'm not here to drink," came an all-too-familiar voice, "I just want to meet the man with the spiky blond hair."

Tifa froze in the middle of wiping the bar's counter-top. Ever so slowly, she turned to take a look at the person who had addressed her. One look at the young woman standing not five feet away from her confirmed her worst fears. There was no mistaking that blond hair, and those icy blue eyes. The determined look on the young woman's face matched that which she often saw on her boyfriend's face.

"Larxene?" Tifa called, stepping back cautiously, "Why do you want to see Cloud?"

"Cloud? That's his name?" Larxene asked in reply, cocking her head to one side and narrowing her eyes, "Lets just say that he and I have some issues to discuss."

"What did he do?"

"He's not in now, right? Where is he?"

"I... I think he's running a delivery. He might be back by lunch."

"So I'll wait outside."

"Larxene, I-"

"Look, lady!" snapped the blond teenager, "This _Cloud_ of yours is my father, as far as I know. And I want to know just why he left me and my mother alone for the past seventeen years."

With that, Larxene exited the bar, slamming the door behind her, leaving behind a shell-shocked Tifa behind the counter. Hearing the sudden loud noise, Irvine came out of the stockroom, holding a broom in his hands. Not seeing anyone in the bar besides Tifa, he turned to her for an explanation.

"Whut in thunderation was goin' on 'ere?"

"None of your goddamned business," snapped Tifa, turning away from him and rinsing her cleaning rag, "Get done with that stock check, and I'll lock this place up.

"Someone's got a bug up their ass," laughed the cowboy, as he went back into the stockroom.

He never saw the lone tear that made its way down Tifa's cheek as she let the dirty rag fall out of her hands and into the sink.

xxx

It was about three in the afternoon when Cloud arrived back at Tifa's bar.

He parked his motorbike at its usual spot in an alley next to the bar, and started to make his way towards Seventh Heaven's side entrance. He had just gotten his hand on the doorknob when a cold voice made itself heard from behind him.

A voice he had heard several times, and which he had never wanted to hear at such a close distance.

"Are you Cloud?"

Turning around, he looked into a pair of eyes that might as well have been his own. Letting out a weary sigh, he spoke.

"Yes. And you must be Larxene?"

"Damn straight I am," replied the blond girl fiercely, "We have a lot to talk about. Hell, I'll make it simpler if you want - where the FUCK were you all this while?"

"I-"

"Mom was never a quitter. She still isn't. Heck, she's a fucking Turk. So some logical thinking puts you in the guilty spot, eh?"

"Elena and I would have never worked out as a couple," Cloud said evenly, trying to not lose his cool, "What happened-"

"You could work that shit well enough to put a bun in her oven-"

"It was not my intention to do so!" retorted Cloud, his eyes widening as he realized what he had just said.

"So I'm an _accident_, then. Boo-fucking-hoo. But where were you when mom was struggling to raise me? Where were you when she was forced to re-enlist in the ShinRa military cause money was so goddamned tight?"

Cloud snapped, "Look, Elena wouldn't accept any help from me! When you were born, I offered to help, but she didn't exactly welcome the cash. Hell, she BURNED the money with a Zippo lighter!"

"How convenient for you," sneered Larxene, "Didn't it occur to you that she might not have been thinking straight back then?"

"You're just trying to put the blame on me!"

"Maybe. And maybe not. Do you know that she used to tell me that you were dead?"

"I'm not surprised."

"Well, given what I've just heard from you, you might as well be!" shouted Larxene, as she turned away from Cloud and furiously marched off. The blond ex-SOLDIER merely looked on as his daughter walked away from him, proving that her temper was definitely something she had gotten from her mother.

For the briefest of moments, there was a hint of tears in his eyes. But only for that short second in time.

xxx

Elena stepped into her home wearily, taking off her blue suit and throwing it onto the coat hanger near the door. Reaching into the pocket of her blue slacks, she took out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. Within five seconds, she lazily drew in her first drag of the night. Looking around, she saw that the all of the lights in the living room were off. Deciding that Larxene must have gone out gallivanting or some good shit like that, she went into the kitchen, and switched the light on. The aged bulb flickered momentarily before coming to life, lighting up the tiny, booby-trapped kitchen with a dim, yellowish light. A cockroach or two scurried out of the way as she walked up to the stove.

"Interesting man, that Cloud," came her daughter's voice suddenly from somewhere behind her.

Elena froze, but only for the tiniest fractions of a second. To any other person, the slip-up would have been unnoticeable, but Larxene was truly her mother's daughter when it came to having sharp perception, "I don't want to talk about that now, Larxene."

"Why, mom?" Larxene asked, her voice hard, "WHY?"

Elena slowly took another drag from her cigarette, before turning to face her daughter. In the dim light of the kitchen, she observed that Larxene did indeed look much like Cloud; the man's genes had outdone themselves in the physical department, they had. Her own contribution to the young lady standing before her was a fiery temper, sharp tongue as well as senses, and a quick-acting mind.

"Why?" Elena echoed, her voice still surprisingly smooth, "Well, his girlfriend had just died in an accident at the old Gongaga Mako Reactor. I had just broken up with Reno. We were both drunk in the same pub. Does that add up simply enough for you?"

"You are no better than he was," her daughter replied venomously, "By the sounds of it, I was nothing more than an accident. A motherfucking accident!"

"You watch your mouth, young lady!" barked Elena, putting out her cigarette on a nearby plate, "I'll admit, neither of us planned it. But I kept you!"

"FOR WHAT?" screeched Larxene, making Elena wince, "Why did you keep me? So that you could lie to me later about my father? So that we could both suffer a little together?"

"It was nothing of the sort!" Elena snapped, "You think I would abort my own child?"

"Why not? You were an ex-SOLDIER already, god knows you'd have offed several people at one point or another-"

"We are not having this discussion!" said Elena through gritted teeth, slamming a fist down on her kitchen counter, "I don't know _why_ I gave you Cloud's address, and whatever possessed me to do so can fucking burn in HELL! Get out. Now."

"Fine!"

With that, Larxene left the house, slamming the door behind her. Elena stood silently in the kitchen for a few minutes, staring at the front door blankly.

"Larxene..." she whispered, even as a sob made its way out of her, cracking the silence like glass.

xxx

Metronome Street was almost completely darkened, since most of the streetlights along its hundred-meter length had been shot out by several generations of schoolchildren with slingshots. Well, admittedly the Twilight Town City Council had also been somewhat stingy with regards to funding for maintenance of the pre-war street. But alas, some things just couldn't be fitted into the budget, especially since the city council members were rumored to be fond of helping themselves to some munny from the town's coffers every now and then. Diz was just about to close the shutters to his little shop when the sound of pattering feet reached his ears. Taking a quick glance at his surroundings, he saw nothing, but the sounds continued to echo along Metronome Street.

"Someone there?" he called out, as he clicked his shop's padlock into its locked position and reached for the collapsible impact baton in his windbreaker's pocket - Miss Scarlet who sold guns somewhere down the road might have given him a pistol for Christmas last year, but he was too terrible a marksman to use it well.

"Diz, it's me," came a familiar voice, as the mysterious somebody approached him from the river's end of Metronome Street.

The voice didn't sound right, but... "Larxene? Is that you?"

"Yups," came the reply, even as Larxene stepped into the small halo of light in front of his shop's door, "Dang, I'm too late..."

"If you want a cup of coffee, my shop is closed for tonight. But if you want some advice, there's a McMoogle's around the corner that is open round the clock."

There was a brief pause, "You mean it?"

"Why not?"

"Lets go, then."

xxx

Ten minutes later found Larxene and Diz seated at a small table for two at the Metronome Street McMoogle's outlet. The lone cashier on duty for the night shift had given them a cursory glance as they entered the outlet, and had hollered into the kitchen for two black coffees. When Larxene had questioned Diz about the free drinks, he had primly stated that he and Yen Sid had a gentleman's agreement with regard to drinking in each others' establishments.

"So Larxene," Diz asked casually, "What is the issue at hand?"

"It's mom. And Cloud," Larxene sniffed, "Old news to you?"

"I heard rumors, but those two are good at keeping their lips sealed."

"Just how much of it do you know?"

"Enough to suspect that ol' chocobo-top is your father? Well, that and the fact that he used to linger suspiciously around your preschool for a while."

"It's enough, then."

An awkward silence settled over the table. Larxene seemed to be trying to make her coffee evaporate by using her nonexistent super heat-ray vision, while Diz digested the news he had just received. Minute plumes of steam curled up from their coffee cups, practically the only sign of movements at the quiet table. Behind the counter, the cashier started to nod off, the white-faced clock hanging above his head showing that it was somewhere close to eleven p.m.

"The only question I have, Larxene," Diz said quietly, "Is why you have decided to open this old wound up once more."

Larxene sipped her scalding hot coffee, seemingly oblivious to the black liquid's temperature, "Cloud was never there."

"Do elaborate..."

"He was not there when mom was trying to juggle two jobs at once to put me through preschool. He was never there when mom had to dig out her old SOLDIER uniform and go back to ShinRa. He didn't see her swallow her pride and become Reno's subordinate."

"Well, there was that one time when he tried to give Elena some cash, but she-"

"But he WASN'T THERE!" Larxene cried, her voice breaking as she hit the tabletop with a clenched fist, "He could have called, or... or something!"

"Larxene," Diz calmly interrupted, "Cloud tried. He did, really. After a while, people began to wonder why he was so interested in you, and eventually the rumors started."

Faded memories of a blond-ish stranger watching her through the preschool's fence surfaced, but only for a moment, "So what? Rumors are not-"

"Elena is a cautious woman," Diz said firmly, "And if there's one thing she will not do, it's putting those she cares about in possibly dangerous situations."

"What does that have-"

"She didn't allow Cloud to contact you, Larxene. She thought you were too young to understand why he was always trying to talk to you and give you things."

Larxene almost said something, but no response came out of her open mouth. Silence settled over the table once again, as she shut her eyes and whispered her next question to the old proprietor seated across the table from her.

"But why not?"

Diz looked thoughtful, "You were born not long after Aerith's death."

"Aerith?" the name sounded vaguely familiar, "Who's that?"

"She was Cloud's girlfriend quite a while back. After she died in an incident at the Gongaga Mako reactor, he-"

"- got drunk and screwed my mom, who was also drunk and in the same pub at the time. Yups, I know this part."

"But that's not the end of it, Larxene," Diz said softly, "The difference between them is that Cloud stayed drunk after that and Elena didn't. He was discharged from SOLDIER due to his alcoholism, and your mother voluntarily left SOLDIER to try and raise you after you were born. So you can't put all the blame on Elena for wanting to keep Cloud away from you."

Larxene wearily asked, "But for seventeen years? That's a long time."

Diz shrugged, "Cloud only got over his alcohol addiction within the last six years or so. He was hooked on liquor for almost an entire decade, Larxene."

"All this while I wanted a father..." Larxene's voice trailed-off, "And he was a deadbeat."

"People have their flaws, child. If you had seen how in love Cloud and Aerith were back in the day... Heck, if you had seen your mother and Cloud shouting to kingdom come right in the middle of Metronome Street... Maybe you would understand that it was not easy on either of them."

Larxene remained silent, her gaze focused on a grease stain at a corner of their table.

"For Elena, it was fear that you would get hurt that made her keep you close to home and away from him. For Cloud, it was probably a mixture of guilt and maybe some paternal instincts that kept him coming back to try and get in touch with you for at least those seven years after you were born."

xxx

Later on in the future, Diz would wonder if his eyesight had been awry that night when recalling the talk. After all, he didn't have his glasses on at the time. However, he could never really bring himself to completely dismiss the sight of Larxene blinking back tears as being caused by his faulty vision.

xxx

Cloud had always been quite a night-owl. So when someone walked past Tifa's bar at close to two in the morning, he heard the person's footsteps stopping just under his bedroom window. There came a sound of something being ripped, followed by a thump or two as if the person was softly knocking the bar's thick wooden door. Immediately after that, the person had walked off, and silence had returned to Metronome Street.

Of course, he had gone down shortly after to see what had been done to the bar's front door - hopefully not more vandalism. What he had found was an envelope pasted to the door, and addressed 'To Dad'.

When Tifa found him asleep at a bar table the next morning, with the tear-stained letter crumpled in his hands, she didn't need to read it to know who the sender was.

* * *

_Dad,_

_I am sorry for what I said to you today._

_It was not easy growing up without a father. But it was probably just as difficult to spend sixteen years without being able to speak to your daughter._

_Someone I can trust told me that you tried to meet me. I can't remember much of my childhood, but I do remember a yellow-haired stranger who was always watching me through the preschool fence. Mom can be a stubborn woman, but... I guess even Aerith would have been proud of you for how long you spent trying to make contact.  
_

_I can't bring myself to blame you for everything anymore. But please understand that somehow, I just can't let it all go._

_Your Daughter,_

_Larxene  
_

xxx

Elena woke up for work, as she had done for the last god-knew-how-many-goddamned years of her life. It had all become a sort of monotonous cycle for her - wake up, wash up, dress for work, get to Midgar, grab a bite at the ShinRa building, file reports, possibly bust in the kneecaps of a few delinquents and criminals, eat dinner, get home, and go to sleep. Rinse, repeat, and set to automatic. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy. She had grown so accustomed to her daily cycle that she even woke up two minutes before her alarm clock rang every morning.

Needless to say, it was somewhat surprising for her to see an envelope taped to her dresser mirror the morning after her confrontation of sorts with Larxene. She had walked up to the dresser, and taken the envelope to have a closer look at it. The words 'To Mom' were scrawled neatly on the front in her daughter's rather masculine hand, and there were several small spots on the paper that looked almost like they had been left by tears.

Five minutes later, Elena was sitting on the edge of her bed, crying her eyes out.

* * *

_Mum,_

_I'm sorry for shouting at you in the kitchen just now. But I just wanted to know why. Why you let me grow up without a father, and why you never let me know the truth about him.  
_

_I heard the whole story from someone whose word can be trusted. Right now, I honestly don't know what to think anymore._

_You were afraid, and I guess I can accept that. But I still feel like I was kept from getting to know my own father by you. Cloud did try to make amends, even when he was bedding the bottle._

_So what I think I'm saying is that... I forgive you for what you did. But I don't think I could forget it, even if I tried my hardest to._

_Your Daughter,_

_Larxene  
_


	11. Daydreamer

**Daydreamer**

_"I'm not going to tell you that daydreaming is bad for you. In fact, it might do you and the others around you a world of good! For instance, I think it was hotshot scientist who came up with some theory or another by daydreaming. __Hmmm? Oh, yes. __Come to think of it, it probably was Einstein - that dude dreamed that he was riding on a sunbeam to the edge of the galaxy or something, and somehow that led to the theory that space is curved.__ But of course, in my class, daydreaming is bad. Why? Because I'd kick your scrawny arse to heaven, hell, and back, that's why! And maybe for the fun of it, I'll do it again. And again. So you miserable wretched souls better pay attention in here if you know what's good for you. Eh? I don't care if you discover some new groundbreaking idea; my class is supposed to be a place of torture and pain, not a conducive environment for philosophical thinking and creativity."_

- Quoted from Mr. Saix, Geometry teacher at Twilight Town High, spoken to his Junior-year class.

xxx

'Education is a means to imprison minds, not liberate them - it is only considered to be successful if it totally eliminates the ability to think creatively.'

It was an age-old joke that had echoed in the halls of Twilight Town High. In fact, almost every student entering Miss Quistis Trepe's classroom had probably seen those very words highlighted in neon pink above the threshold. She might have been a mere English teacher by name, but her classes were generally regarded to be valuable lessons in life by those who had been a part of them. Often, she had brought up issues considered to be taboo by society during class discussions, and her exams were no different. Of course, she did draw some criticism from certain parties who felt her approach to education was too liberal, and that she should stick to using the government-approved syllabus.

Homosexuality, corruption, ethnocentrism, mental disorders, and even Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of Death were frequent topics of discussion in her classes. However, the topic which she always put the greatest emphasis on happened to be her least popular topic. One who was familiar with her teaching methods would have found this surprising, since her students were comparable to a school of piranha when she opened her discussions up. Somehow, this particular topic failed to hit home with most of them.

It was strange indeed, given that the topic in question was 'Living your dreams'. But it was fitting that those who DID appreciate the discussions on it were none other than the school's greatest daydreamers.

Of course, Demyx Kohaku was among those who could have been charged with reckless daydreaming.

xxx

Bright lights shone down on rows of velvet-lined seats that had been lined up on a wooden floor as polished as Rude the Turk's bald head. A school assembly hall, typically stuffy and musty, had been changed into an impressive room that almost seemed fit to be a dancing ball's venue. Well, the chairs were very effective at throwing that notion out of the window, and the large banner hung over the stage was more than enough to inform any visitors of the hall's next function.

Some of the seats were already occupied by people of various ages. A rather motley bunch they were, too - some wore casual wear, some were garbed in smart outfits, and some others were decked out in Gothic clothing. None of the front-row velvet seats were occupied, and the few seats on the stage were also vacant. A great sense of anticipation lingered in the hall, as if something great was about to happen there. Many expectant glances were directed at the large, white-faced clock that was positioned right above the stage's center, under the golden characters that spelled out Twilight Town High's motto of '_Nisi Dominus Frustra_'. And in its own way, greatness was indeed mere minutes away from entering the hall.

As soon as the ancient clock struck five fifty-eight, the lights in the hall were dimmed, and a voice was heard from large speakers placed at the corners of the hall.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the graduation ceremony of Twilight Town High School! Kindly switch off all mobile phones or silence them now. The ceremony begins in two minutes."

Rustles and murmuring were heard as those already assembled in the hall complied with the spoken instructions. Soon enough, the voice spoke up again.

"And now, please welcome the educators of Twilight Town High School!"

Polite applause broke out as the hall's main doors opened and the aforementioned teachers entered the hall, some shaking hands with the people whom they passed. Others, like the flamboyant Mr. Kuja Tribal, blew kisses to the crowd and waved. The more antisocial teachers, notably Mr. Xemnas and Mr. Saix, merely walked straight towards the front row of seats, ignoring the audience completely. Some sighs of relief were heard as certain people confirmed that Miss Lani Euclid was indeed absent - she might have resigned for the sake of her health, but an invitation to the ceremony had been sent to her out of courtesy.

The teachers took their seats, and the speakers boomed out their next declaration.

"Here, they are, the guys and gals of the day... PLEASE WELCOME THE CLASS OF 2017!"

With that said, rows of students wearing the school's traditional blue graduation gowns and mortar boards trooped into the hall, as the customary song 'Graduation' started to play.

Few noticed that one student had to hurriedly squeeze through the crowd to reach a curiously empty spot between several other students. He seemed rather flustered, but once he had determined that he was in the right position, he calmed down and joined in the general excitement that filled the hall.

Let it never be said that Demyx had dreamed his way into missing his own graduation ceremony.

xxx

After the opening speeches by Principal Maleficent and the PTA head had been finished, the guest of honor rose from his seat on the stage and walked shakily over to the microphone. He was venerable by most standards, with a head of thick, white hair, and a pair of penetrating silver eyes that made several people flinch as he gazed at them. He leaned against the podium, and cleared his throat.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I also extend my greetings to the teachers among the audience, and the young men and women who are the reason why this ceremony is being held. As Principal Maleficent has already mentioned, my name is Dr. Howard Ashman, and I was the first principal of this school here."

He paused for a moment, sweeping the audience with his piercing gaze, "I feel very honored to have been called back for this ceremony. And as such, I shall not waste too much time on making a boring speech."

"YOU GO, MAN!" cheered a male student, causing some laughter from his friends, and several venomous looks from the likes of Xemnas, Saix, and Maleficent.

"Indeed, young chap," smiled Dr. Ashman, "I shall go, but only once I have finished this poem I have here. Listen CAREFULLY."

Immediately, the hall became completely quiet, silenced by the authority in the old man's voice.

"This is Rudyard Kipling's poem 'If-'. And if I may say so, I honestly feel that it is one of his greatest works."

With that, he drew in a deep breath, and demonstrated one of the reasons why he had been granted his doctorate in Literature.

"If you can keep your head when all about you  
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,  
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,  
But make allowance for their doubting too;  
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,  
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,  
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,  
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;  
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;  
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster  
And treat those two imposters just the same;  
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken  
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,  
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,  
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings  
And risk it on one turn of pitch - and toss,  
And lose, and start again at your beginnings  
And never breathe a word about your loss;  
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew  
To serve your turn long after they are gone,  
And so hold on when there is nothing in you  
Except the Will which says to them: "_Hold on!_"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,  
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,  
If all men count with you, but none too much;  
If you can fill the unforgiving minute  
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,  
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,  
And - which is more - _you'll be a Man_, my son!"

The hall remained silent as the former principal finished his recital, and the silence lasted right until the moment when he sat down again. Some scattered yet polite applause was heard, before the emcee broke the voiceless atmosphere.

"The graduates shall now come up to the stage when their names are called."

Many of the graduating students began to whisper excitedly among themselves, and the sound volume in the hall rose by several audible notches. As the emcee began calling out their names, most of them became even more excited, save for one of them.

Demyx was still busy processing the poem's words - and doing some spontaneous mind wandering - when his name was eventually called. After two consecutive calls, the emcee cleared his throat and moved on to the next name.

xxx

Now, at this point in time, it would be appropriate to note that Demyx was not a person with attention-deficit disorder. He merely had a mind that enjoyed associating things to other memories of his, and as such, it tended to wander shamelessly. For instance, he had one day seen a sparrow sitting on a telephone cable, and had gone to eat a bowl of ice cream after that. When asked why he was eating ice cream suddenly, he had replied that seeing the sparrow had reminded him of a bird's nest. Which in turn had reminded him of Chinese bird's nest soup, which was rather sweet and jelly-like. And then, he had recalled the small tub of ice cream sitting at the back of his home's freezer, which was due to expire in a couple of weeks.

So really, it wasn't his fault... entirely, that is.

xxx

By the time the hall's old clock had struck ten, the hall was devoid of any human life forms. Mortar boards had been thrown, cheers had been yelled until throats became hoarse, and tears had been shed as the ceremony came to its inevitable end. Laughter was heard, and the hall was frequently brightened ever-so-slightly by the flashes of cameras. Some of the tearful people there had been the parents, and everyone was quite shocked to see Miss Freya - the tough old History teacher - crying as several students came forth to give her a hug. Shortly after the ceremony finished, the school secretary, one Mr. Zidane Tribal, was discovered in one of the backstage closets engaged in a fierce bit of lip-locking with his wife, Mrs. Garnet the Biology teacher.

Now, at ten past ten, a group of gown-clad students were walking towards Metronome Street, making enough noise to awaken half of the old road's sleeping residents, and not giving two hoots about it.

"Man, it's hard to believe we actually graduated!" chirped Sora, bouncing about excitably, "Four years went by that fast, eh?"

"Indeed," Zexion muttered, staring aimlessly ahead as he mechanically walked.

"Ah, it's all a load of shite," grumbled Larxene, "Much ado about nothing, if you ask me."

"I'm surprised you didn't go and covertly deck Saix just now, Larxene. He passed by you without noticing you!" laughed Kairi.

"I should have," she huffed, "But I didn't want to end my schooling days on a bad note."

"Diz said he'll keep the place open for us today, come on!" said Riku, as he pointed towards one of the few shops up ahead that had yet to be darkened and closed.

The nine of them jostled forward, and gasped as they looked through the glass shopfront window. A banner had been hung up saying 'HAPPY GRADUATION', and the tables had been covered with Diz's presumably infinite collection of red checkered tablecloths. Crepe garlands were strung up across the ceiling, and a small, glittery sphere was suspended from the ceiling fan. Diz himself was nowhere in sight, presumable being busy in the kitchen or pantry.

"Wow, Diz dolled the place up," commented Marluxia.

"Not as pretty as you are, flower boy," his girlfriend smirked.

"WHAT? Get down on the groun-"

"Right, and you'll fuck me senseless. Lets just go in already."

"Namine, you're in front of the door."

"For the sake of Jesus H. Johnnycake CHRIST!" snapped Roxas, "Will someone open the goddamned door already?"

"Keep a lid on that potty mouth, Roxas. The shit from your internal septic tank might all spew out."

With that, they entered the shop. However, one of them remained outside, standing in the middle of the five-foot way and looking rather lost. It was only when Zexion noticed his absence and went out to retrieve him did Demyx enter the nicely-decorated shop, where Diz was just carrying out a large chocolate cake with ten blazing candles on it.

xxx

"So how was the ceremony?" Diz asked, as he helped himself to some of the freshly-cut cake, "Any streaking?"

"_Streaking?_" asked Sora with his mouth full of cake, "Who did that?"

"Well, Sephiroth was dared by Reno to enter the hall in the buff. And for his part, Reno would do a cross-dressing dance on the stage."

"WHAT THE FUCK?" exclaimed Riku and Zexion in unison, as the shop's door opened with a cheerful tinkle from the bell hung above it.

Rufus ShinRa and his highest-ranking employees calmly strode in, some questionable stains on their clothes.

"Well, happy graduation to you lot," the ShinRa president said with a small smile, "Hope you don't mind us barging in like this."

"Hey guys!" Axel waved from behind his father, still in his Turk's suit, "How was it?"

"Old lady Freya cried!" snickered Marluxia.

"Really?"

As if on cue, several conversations broke out simultaneously among those in the coffee shop. Elena could be seen blinking back tears and beaming with pride at her daughter, while Sephiroth happily handed his twin sons a small, prettily-wrapped box. Reno and Axel were laughing at the teenagers' accounts of what had happened earlier at the graduation ceremony. No one noticed Rufus and Hojo walking towards the back of the shop with Diz.

"Still got the enzyme, Diz?" Hojo asked, as he polished his spectacles.

"A little. Who was it this time?"

"Lets just say that someone got cornholed," Rufus said softly, emphasizing the word 'cornholed'.

"Don Corneo? Here's the enzyme, by the way."

"Yups. And thanks - it works wonders for removing bloodstains."

"How did you get stained? Kotch and Skotch wouldn't have been too tedious to deal with..."

"Must've hit an artery," Hojo mumbled, as he swabbed one of the stains on his lab coat with the enzyme solution, "The bastard spurted."

"So have things gone quiet on the grassy plains?"

"Grassy plains are fine, but hardly quiet. Some persistent weeds still rooted there."

"I see... Here's some paper towels..."

None of them were aware that for once, Demyx's mind was not on his daydreams, and that his sharp sense of hearing had been directed their way.

xxx

Once everyone else had left around half-past eleven, Demyx stayed back to help Diz clean up. But of course, he was also curious about the puzzling conversation that had taken place between Diz, Hojo, and Rufus. So while he and Diz were washing the dishes, he casually brought up the topic.

"So, Diz," he said, "What's this about grassy plains and cornholing people?"

Diz hesitated for a moment, before smirking.

"Ah, looks like the daydreamer has been the one to overhear us. What irony..."

"I am NOT a daydreamer!"

"Oh yes you are, heheheh! I was told that Principal Maleficent had to hand you your diploma after the ceremony-"

"That was unintentional! And you're not evading my questions this easily!"

"Since when is daydreaming intentional? And no, I didn't expect to, so what is the problem here?"

"What were you, Rufus, and the professor discussing?"

Diz wiped the plate he had been holding, and placed it on the rack to dry. Then he turned to face Demyx.

"Have you heard the rumors about the weed down at the harbor?"

"Oh, those rumors? Everyone's heard of them."

"Well, they're true."

"WHAT?"

Diz shrugged, "There just happens to be a weed-packing plant at the Timeless River pier, though obviously it's a small-scale operation. The man in charge was a fat slob named Don Corneo, and his death was what Rufus meant by 'cornholing'."

CRASH! The plate Demyx had been holding fell to the floor as he gaped at Diz. Fortunately, the plate was plastic, and it did not break upon impact with the hard, cement floor.

"Du... Dude! You can't be serious!"

"I am. And do wash that plate again, it's dirty now."

As he picked up the plate with shaky hands and started to rinse it for the second time, he asked slowly, "So they just killed someone?"

"Don Corneo, yes. His two henchmen, Kotch and Skotch, are probably dead as well."

"We gotta call the cops!"

"Nope, we don't."

"Wha-"

"Look, Demyx. The cops are in on the take. For every packet of weed that the plant processes and sells, a twenty percent cut of the profits is given for them. The rest of the profits is split between the plant operators and ShinRa. Why do you think the ferry is still being run? The harbor is both a packing and shipping facility, heh!"

When no response was heard, Diz turned to see Demyx gawking at him with his mouth open.

"Catching flies?"

"Bu... But... This is illegal!"

"So what? The cops are corrupt enough to let it happen, and sonny, you can be sure of this - ShinRa will never be touched by the law."

"What?"

"Demyx..." Diz paused, "ShinRa IS the law."

Demyx was flabbergasted, his mouth opening and closing mutely several times before he cuould speak again, "Now that sounded like a 'Revenge of the Sith' spoof..."

"Eh, it was. Got to love the Sidious and Yoda fight for its epic-ness."

"So there is a weed factory at the harbor?"

"Yup."

"And the cops wont bust it cause ShinRa buys them off?"

"Uh-huh."

"So no one can do anything about it?"

"Hmmm."

"You're not going to kill me, are you?"

"I wont. But if you don't keep it quiet, someone else might."

"Well, fuck this!"

"Ahem, such language! Know this, Demyx... If you breathe a word of this to anyone else, Rufus might make a business trip to your house someday soon, if you know what I mean."

"... you mean an assassination attempt?"

"Exactly!"

"How can you be so cheerful about all this?"

"Comes with the territory, Demyx. Every big city's the same - politicians or large corporations sticking their hands up the law's ass and working it like a puppet. And we're done with the dishes!" chirped Diz happily, "Thanks for the help, kiddo!"

Diz walked out of the kitchen, leaving Demyx standing there in silence. The blond teenager was troubled by what he had heard, since the topic of corruption was one that he was all too familiar with. And what made Diz's revelations sting was the fact that he had always tried to make himself believe that the corruption stories were just that - stories. The fact that he had been effectively living in ignorance of the truth - dreaming once more - didn't escape his notice. When Diz came to tell him that he was going to lock the shop up, he barely heard the proprietor's words.

Only later did he realize that Diz had actually walked him home, and that he was holding a small scrap of paper that Diz had pressed into his hands while telling him to not worry about anything - most of Twilight Town's residents believed the weed factory to be a myth, anyways.

All it said was 'Something to make up for the emotional burden... Try not to think of it too much. Call 603795758031, tell him that Diz thinks you can do it.'

_Two months later_

Demyx sat on a high stool, nervously holding on to his guitar and fiddling with its tuning knobs. In front of him, four men were seated in a row behind a long table, one of them lazily smoking a cigarette.

"Well go on, kid," the smoker said after a while, waving his hand absently, "Diz said you could do it, so let me see if you're any good."

"Ah... Oh... Okay," the teen murmured nervously, as he shifted the guitar into his usual playing position, "This one's called 'Daydream Believer', by-"

"It was by The Monkees," interrupted one of the three non-smokers, "Do hurry - I'm in a small rush of sorts."

Drawing in a deep breath, Demyx started to pluck at the strings of his guitar, his fingers nimbly flitting across the frets to hit the right notes. As he played, his mind wandered over to the reason why he had chosen this particular song for the short demonstration of his musical prowess. It was _his _song, after all. The phone number Diz had given to him was that of a rather famous composer and musician, and when he had repeated Diz's instructions to the amused man on the other end of the line, he had been told to perfect a song, and to show up on a certain date and time at a certain studio.

Several minutes later, he plucked the song's last note, and the room was silent. The four men looked at him pensively, and after what seemed like an eternity, the smoking man spoke up.

"Yup, Diz was right about you."

"You've got a gift, kid," smiled one of the other men, "So what say you?"

"You mean that's it?"

"Of course that's it," said the smoker dismissively as he stubbed out his cigarette on the table in front of him, "We could use your talent, and the next opening's in three months. You up to it?"

Demyx was quiet for a few moments, before his expression broke into a wide grin.

"It's a deal, Mr. Uematsu. And it's an honor to have been here today with you."


	12. Separation

**Separation**

In a darkened, silent room, five people sat around a small table. An ancient-looking telephone had been placed on the worn wooden tabletop, which itself was marked by numerous grooves, cuts, and burn marks. The floor was covered in dust - nearly an inch of it, if you wanted to go into specifics - and had clearly been deprived of a good sweeping for a long time. All the room had in way of lighting was a single bulb, which was probably close to burning out, if its blackened glass surface was any indication. No windows or vents existed in the room, either.

However, the funny thing about the room was that everyone who worked in the ShinRa headquarters had probably walked past the room at some point of their career without knowing what lay behind the locked door. Even the custodial staff were clueless as to the true nature of the room, since they weren't allowed in to clean it or even air it out. In fact, the only people who regularly entered the room were President ShinRa himself, together with a select group of Turks. Of course, those Turks were typically the senior Turks - Tseng, Reno, Rude, and Elena.

"When's the call coming in?" Reno drawled, as he stretched in his seat. "They've never been late before..."

"Be patient, Reno," Tseng said curtly. "This call should reveal the location of the... misbehaving branch."

Rufus ShinRa flicked his gaze towards the innumerable sheets of paper that had been tacked to the room's walls. While the room itself had been built out of the usual brick and mortar, a thick layer of foam padding had been put into place to make it as soundproof as it could be. During their secret meetings within the room, he and his Turks often posted up little scraps of information on the walls, depending on what they were discussing at that point in time. The walls around the door were allocated for memos regarding the company's scientific dealings, and Hojo's latest biological weapons research. Opposite to that wall was a section dedicated to the black market, which ShinRa happened to be actively but discreetly involved in.

It was that wall which Rufus was staring at.

"Don Corneo managed to keep things quiet before we did him in," mused the blond-haired man, "but he didn't count on his underlings continuing to carry out their clandestine operations at the harbor, apparently."

"Sir, we do not yet know if the harbor is a confirmed location," Rude said, as he adjusted his sunglasses. No one knew why he wore them indoors, but hey, he was Rude, and few people other than Reno dared to mess with the mountain of a Turk.

As if on cue, the phone on the table began to ring. It had a simple ring-tone that would have been right at home in a 1950's movie, but it somehow it was enough to make the Turks and Rufus straighten up in their seats.

Picking up the phone, Rufus brought the receiver to his ear and remained silent.

"Alpha, bravo, bravo, alpha. Three, one, four, one, five, nine, two, seven," rasped the person on the other end of the line.

"Acknowledged. Where is the mess?"

"Confirmed at Twilight Harbor," mumbled the caller. "Unconfirmed on security."

"Security?" Rufus' tone was polite, but at the same time managed to convey an aura of malice. "Clarify."

"Information's dried up on them. They're planning to pull out and make for it by the end of the week, so rumor has it that they got Red in to keep things safe for them."

"Red? Are you sure about this?"

"Unconfirmed; like I said, they've sealed the information leaks on us. Stinky Thumbs was found dead in Sector Six this morning."

"Acknowledged. Any other relevant information?"

"None."

"Out."

With a neat click, the secured phone line went silent.

xxx

In several houses, large cardboard boxes were being filled at an alarming rate as at least one of their occupants prepared to move out. Unnaturally large dust bunnies were unearthed and long-forgotten items were rediscovered as entire rooms had their contents shaken up and sorted through. Clothes were haphazardly folded, rolled, or otherwise packed into boxes and bags, and more than once, several choice curses could be heard as the people who were busy at packing ran into an unexpected snag or several. To put it very simply, the packing operations taking place all over Twilight Town probably resembled a botched attempt at ethnic cleansing rather than a tidying and packing process.

After all, teenagers heading off to college weren't exactly renowned for their neatness and attention to detail now, were they?

Riku had applied to a college over at Midgar, though none of his friends knew which one he had actually chosen. Sora and Roxas were planning to enter Twilight Town College, whereas Namine and Kairi were slotted to go to college over at the Destiny Islands. Axel, Demyx, Larxene, and Marluxia were not planning to further their studies, and were all busy attending job interviews and the like. Somehow, no one knew of the deal which Demyx had made with a certain Mr. Uematsu, and this included none other than his boyfriend, Zexion.

The teenagers who had spent so much of their time in the last few years at Diz's coffee shop were at long last moving on.

xxx

Zexion, ever the black sheep of the group, had secured an internship in none other than the laboratories of Professor Hojo, and had already left Twilight Town some three days prior to the massive packing frenzy that was presently taking place.

His departure had been particularly hard on Demyx, but blond had merely sighed and went on with tuning his sitar when he received confirmation of the news. Their relationship had been strained at best once Zexion had began spending more and more time with his books than his boyfriend, and despite his best attempts, Demyx really couldn't salvage the situation. Even when they did sleep with each other, things felt forced, and Zexion's mind was always somewhere far away, anyway.

The argument they had had about two days before Zexion left hadn't been pleasant, either.

_"... I can't do this."_

_"And why not, Demyx?"_

_"It doesn't feel right anymore! You... you're always so distant, so distracted... I can't do this anymore."_

_"... look, it's not all about the sex, is it?"_

_"It's not... but Zexy, why can't you spend a little less time studying and a little more time with us?"_

_"..."_

_"You've spent practically your whole life chasing after a bunch of facts and formulas, and for what? Answer me that, Zexion."_

_"None of you would understand-"_

_"I'm your friend, Zexion. And I'm supposed to be your boyfriend, at that! I would have understood, or at least tried to!"_

_"Look, can we let this one go?"_

_"No, I'm not letting this one go! This conversation has been long overdue!"_

_"Demyx, I'm giving you a chance to be the bigger person-"_

_"You know what?" Demyx growled, as he pulled his shirt back on. "You're a bigger fool than I had imagined you to be."_

_Zexion's one visible eye narrowed, and his voice sank into an ominous deadpan, "What do you mean by that?"_

_"You," Demyx said, as he made his way to the door, "have wasted almost the entirety of your teenage life away. And as much as I once felt for you, I just can't do this anymore."_

_"... I'm sorry that you feel that way, but kindly close the door on your way out."_

_The door slammed and Zexion was left alone once again. He never did see the lone tear that escaped Demyx's left eye, and for his part, Demyx didn't see Zexion quietly filing away all the photographs of the two of them._

xxx

"So what course did you apply for over at The Dick?"

Namine sighed, "I applied for the arts course, Sora. And I would appreciate it if you would stop calling my future college... that."

"What? The DICK?"

"... yes, that."

"Aww, Namine," Kairi giggled, "Sora's just upset that our college has more of a dick than he does!"

"HEY!"

The Destiny Islands were a small cluster of islands located about halfway across the continent from Twilight Town, and as such were located somewhere about Gaia's tropical regions. Most people who went there on a vacation typically ended up being mesmerized by the calming weather and relaxed atmosphere of the islands, as well as the pristine beaches. However, the acres of white sand were probably the only relaxing spots on the islands, since the Destiny Islands College - also known rather notoriously as 'The Dick' thanks to its initials - was infamous for being a veritable pressure cooker for students. While the Junon Institute of Technology was renowned for its ball-breaking science courses, especially in fields related to engineering, The Dick was in turn known for its dangerously mind-blasting business and arts courses.

Just why Kairi and Namine chose to enter The Dick was a mystery of sorts, but no one doubted that they could make it there if they wanted to. After all, Namine's passion lay in the arts, and Kairi's flair for accounting was practically legendary among the students of their batch. Also, the fact that the two teenagers had been offered a scholarship from the prestigious college probably spoke for itself. For the first time in a while, Namine and Kairi actually looked happy when faced with the idea of studying in a challenging environment.

However, like everything else in the hideously unfair affair known as life, the deal came with its own downside of sorts. Namely, it involved Kairi and Namine leaving Twilight Town about a month earlier than everyone else who had planned to further their studies beyond the homey confines of the town. The Dick, much like the Junon Institute of Technology, began its semester earlier than any other college did, and so the two of them had been forced to pack their things before their peers had even began thinking of the matter at hand.

"Keep in touch!"

"Make sure you don't drink alcohol!"

"Will do!"

"Email me! PICTURES!"

"Hope you see lots of hot guys there!"

"SORA!"

"Enjoy the courses!"

"Take care, kids!"

"I'm so proud of you!"

"Don't forget to remember us!"

"Good luck!"

"See you in six months!"

It wasn't long before the station master blew his whistle, and the train to the Destiny Islands began sluggishly pulling out of the Timeless River station. Kairi and Namine leaned out of the windows and waved at their friends and family members, calling out their farewells. And then the train approached a bend in the tracks, and the two of them could no longer be seen.

xxx

Twilight Town High's notorious Geometry teacher, Mr. Saix, was enjoying a cup of tea together with his colleague, Miss Quistis, when his close friend Mr. Xemnas burst into the staff room with an expression of disbelief on his face. The noisy entrance by the usually composed Literature teacher caused several eyebrows to be raised, and no one failed to notice that he hadn't worn that particular facial expression since the Great Noodle Incident of 1985.

"You are NOT going to believe the news I just received!" he gasped, as he stepped forward and sank into his favorite sofa.

"Wonder what's got _your_ knickers in a twist?" wondered Miss Quistis, as she sipped her tea.

"Someone... No, _one_ of our former students," said Xemnas carefully, "has applied to the Midgar Teachers' Training College."

Quistis smiled, "That's great news! So who was it, and what field did they select?"

"Oh, it's good news alright... It's just that I never would have thought it possible for Riku Nomura-"

Saix sat bolt upright and spat out his tea upon hearing the name Xemnas had mentioned, "WHAT?"

"Yes, Saix," Xemnas said weakly, as he slumped down into the sofa's squishy embrace, "your favorite student has applied to become a teacher. And if you flipped at that announcement, wait till you hear what field he chose."

Quistis, who at the moment was busy using a handkerchief to wipe up the tea that Saix had unintentionally spewed in her direction, moodily took a stab at it, "He chose Maths, didn't he?"

"... yes. A degree in education, majoring in Maths. My contact over at Midgar TTC told me that he had tried to further specialize in Geometry, but that he wasn't allowed to."

All Saix could do was gape, as Xemnas and Quistis laughed at how his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.

xxx

"Welcome to your orientation!" boomed the student council president of Twilight Town College. "Before we begin, I would like to state that we do NOT support ragging in any form here at Twilight Town College. However, we do believe in some fun initiation rites, so you lot had best get prepared! GWAHAHA!"

"Now, if Jack here will be so kind... Ah, good! Let's see... Vivi!"

"Umm?" the yellow-eyed freshman blinked obliviously upon hearing his name being called.

"Your assignment is to collect the signatures of ALL the student council members! If they were to ask you to complete a task before they will give you their signatures, then hard luck!"

"Wha-"

"Sora!"

"Yes?"

"If you would be so kind as to step up here? You have the honor of being the first freshman to be oriented!"

"And this is an honor... how?" Sora asked, with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms. "I'm not masochistic in any way, so I guess it's not as honorable as you think it to be."

The smile vanished from the speaker's face, to be replaced with a sharp scowl, "Let's not create a scene here, if you get my drift."

"Oh? It seems _you're_ the one trying to start something with me," retorted the brown-haired freshman. "And trust me, you do NOT want to mess with me."

Aghast, the student council members could only stare at him as he continued his rant.

"I came here to _study_, not to go through whatever asinine nonsense you guys have cooked up! Let's be straight here; most of the freshmen are all from the same school, anyway. So this 'ice breaking' session is rather pointless, don't you think?"

"Look, there are some of them-"

"We aren't an unfriendly bunch here," Sora snapped, cutting the president off halfway through his reply. "Heck, I'm sure that my former schoolmates here would agree with that. If we see someone looking lost, we'd be there to try and acquaint ourselves with them."

Several nods and smiles could be seen among the freshmen from Twilight Town High at that statement.

Sora looked at the president in the eye, finishing his speech of sorts, "So why don't you take a hike, and _stop wasting my time_."

With that, he spun on his heel and left the orientation area. The seniors looked on, shocked, as the entire group of freshmen followed suit, none of them knowing just what to do or say. Roxas, who had been watching silently all the while, lingered for a while, before giving the seniors a disinterested look and leaving the hall.

Once the hall had been emptied of any freshmen, the president broke down into a fit of laughter, drawing curious looks from his fellow seniors.

"What could possibly be so funny?" asked one of them.

"That freshman," laughed the president, "has got _guts!_ I like him already!"

"But what about being sporting, and-"

"He'll come around! You guys were the ones pushing for the ragging, anyways."

"Bullshit!"

"Ah, shut it, Perkins!"

xxx

Diz was reading the newspaper and bringing himself up to date on Senator Cid Fabool's latest sex scandal when his shop's phone rang. Given that he could count the number of people who knew his number with one hand, he had already formed a mental list of possible callers when he picked it up. If it was the Turks again, he'd need to go to the nearby sundry shop for some fresh bleach, more likely than not...

"Diz's coffee shop."

"Yo, Diz!"

"Axel!" he replied warmly. The fiery-haired young man had been a frequent visitor to his shop, even after he had been made a Turk some while back, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Umm, dad just asked me to call in a booking for tonight. Seven heads."

"Seven?"

"Yup, seven. Tseng, Rude, Elena, my dad, myself, Larxene, and Marluxia."

Diz whistled, "Interesting. Estimated time?"

"Uh-uh. I'm not at liberty to disclose that much information."

"Very well, then... I'll keep a kettle of coffee hot for you guys starting from ten p.m."

"Thanks, Diz! You're a GOD, man!"

"Axel?" Diz called out, catching Axel just as he was about to hang up.

"Yeah?"

"It's your first official mission, isn't it? Together with Larxene and Marluxia?"

"Yup... It's our first."

"Best of luck."

"Thanks, man!"

xxx

The Twilight Town harbor was a quiet place at night. Once the old ferry had been shut down for the day, no one lingered about the place, save for maybe Pete the ferry captain and Mickey the harbor master. It was also at night that the ferry's maintenance crew got to work on the ancient vessel, and so the place often reeked of engine oil and elbow grease after hours. However, even those industrious laborers would often be long gone by the time the harbor's plain-faced clock struck ten, and so most people usually assumed that the station was devoid of life by ten thirty at night.

If only they knew how wrong that assumption was, and the reason _why_ it was wrong.

Not fifty meters away from the harbor itself was a cluster of low-roofed storage sheds, with numerous dark alleyways between them. In the darkness, an armored four-wheel drive silently crept towards the harbor with its headlights off. Within the vehicle were seven blue-suited people, six of which were fiddling with various types of weaponry.

"So we're going to sneak in there and take out the coke-packers?" asked Larxene quietly, as she slipped her kunai blades into their sheaths on the backs of her hands.

"Yup. From our intel, it shouldn't be more than the two branch managers and their two packing clowns," Reno confirmed with a nod, even as he checked that his EMR was fully charged. "For a bunch of guys who tried to double-cross Rufus ShinRa, they're being amazingly lax about their security."

"We can't assume that they don't have some form of backup in there with them," warned Tseng, "especially since intel also hinted that Red might be in there with them."

"Red?" asked Axel, as he slipped his own EMR into its sheath.

"Otherwise known as 'The Flaming Amarant'," Rude added softly.

The three junior Turks remained silent upon hearing the legendary mercenary's name; their training had placed a significant amount of emphasis on the man's reputation. Apparently, he had been the reason why Vincent Valentine's left hand was deformed, and also the reason why Heidegger had left the Turks to become the head of SOLDIER. Cumulatively, the bounties on his head amounted to more than half a million Gil, but none of the bounty hunters out there had the guts to take him out. If the rumors were accurate, the last mercenary to try and collect the bounty on his head was none other than Zidane Tribal - usually known to most as the secretary of Twlight Town High.

Supposedly, the only reason why they hadn't finished each other off during that last encounter was because they decided that they just couldn't kill each other without making their lives more miserable. Amarant wouldn't be able to live without Zidane as his competitor on the mercenary market, and one Garnet Tribal didn't exactly like the idea of her husband being the top killer out on the underworld. So it was a fairly win-win situation for both of them, really. Anyone who disagreed with either opinion usually turned out dead within a week, with some evidence indicating that the job had been carried out by one of the two killers.

The vehicle came to a stop, and Elena pulled up the handbrake.

"Let's do it."

xxx

You could say that the Twilight Town harbor was similar to the ShinRa headquarters in the sense that it had a mysterious, perpetually-locked door near the harbor master's office. Most visitors and passengers assumed that it was a storage room or lead to the fuse boxes, but of course, those assumptions were completely wrong; there were two other doors with the words 'Storage' and 'High Voltage - Do Not Enter' on the other side of the office.

It was the first door which the Turks had gathered in front of. Naturally, the harbor's office lights were all off, rendering the security camera inside the booth useless for seeing beyond the plexiglass walls of harbor master Mickey's office.

"Try the door," whispered Tseng, as Marluxia got out his lock-picking kit. "If it's locked, then our work here is... more difficult."

The pink-haired junior Turk silently turned the doorknob, and to their collective surprise, the door opened without a sound. It swung open to reveal a dark stairway heading towards the harbor's basement - a place which few people knew about. It was in truth little more than a small network of tunnels that extended into the ground about two floors beneath the harbor, whose blueprints had long been lost.

"Arrogant pricks," rumbled Rude, as he fingered his brass knuckles. "Wont even lock the door."

"You know what to do. Get in, strike, and get out," said Reno softly. "Go!"

With that, the seven of them made their way down the darkened flight of stairs, descending into the subterranean drug factory.

xxx

"I see some light ahead."

Reno strained his eyes to try and see what his son had spotted. Sure enough, there was a faint band of light coming from under a closed door somewhere in the darkness up ahead of them. Otherwise, the entire corridor was pitch-black.

"Probably the packing room... slowly does it, handgun on the ready."

The two Turks stealthily approached the door, and soon enough, they heard the unmistakable sounds of slurred laughter coming from within the room.

"It's the packing room, alright. Those two stoners should be the only workers here," whispered Reno. "Ready?"

"No shit."

Wordlessly, Reno kicked the door down, his kick being forceful enough to tear the door off its hinges. The two of them rushed into the room and immediately drew their sidearms. Under the bright fluorescent lights, piles of white powder were laid out on large sheets of plastic, and two pale-faced men were standing at the far side of the room over by a pair of bag-sealing machines. Dozens of small plastic packets were stacked up neatly all around them, and two small trowels could be seen sticking out from the cocaine pile nearest to them. As they approached the two men with their pistols trained on them, Axel noticed that they really weren't pale-faced after all; their faces were actually _coated_ in a layer of cocaine powder.

"Zorn, Thorn." drawled Reno, as he kept his firearm aimed at them, "How nice to see you again."

"What is the meaning of this?" snapped the man in the blue shirt, as he stepped away from his bag-sealer.

"Right, Zorn is... The meaning of this, we demand to know!" huffed his red-shirted companion irritably.

"Now, now. You didn't think that we wouldn't find out about the siphoning of funds? Or the side-dealings in _our_ coke? How stupid do you think we are, really?"

"This is all a gross misunderstanding!" cried Zorn, as he backed up against the wall. "We haven't done anything wrong!"

Reno narrowed his eyes in anger, "Step away from the silent alarm, you dumb fuck, before I put a slug between your eyes."

Axel watched the whole verbal exchange silently, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He was supposed to let his father do the talking, and observe how the job was done. After all, the Turks were big advocates of hands-on training, and one of them was usually enough to handle such a situation. Thus, the rookie(s) were typically mere observers during such operations.

However, he kept his own handgun trained on Thorn, even as the stoned packer began inching towards his bag sealer, "Hold it!"

"Keep him quiet, Axel," Reno growled, "Zorn here has some explaining to do - I can't understand whatever the fuck Thorn says."

Thorn suddenly stopped moving, as Axel flicked the safety on his pistol into its 'off' position. Almost ominously, Reno's walkie-talkie began to vibrate. Wordlessly, he picked it up with his free hand, and put it to his ear.

"Yo."

"Reno, it's Elena!" came the static-distorted voice from the speaker. "What's your status?"

"We've got Zorn and Thorn covered in the packing room," he replied, his brow furrowing in bewilderment. "What happened?"

"I just found Rude in a corridor."

"... what's that supposed to mean?" Reno asked, his voice betraying a hint of uncertainty.

"Reno... Red is here."

For a moment, all was silent in the packing room. Before either Turk could do anything, Zorn had made a mad dash for the red tile on the floor several feet away from him. Just as he was about to slam his foot down on it, a single shot from Reno caught him between the eyes. Even as he was thrown backwards into the wall, Thorn tried to go for another red tile on the other side of the room.

"Stop!" Axel cried, as he fired off a wild shot in the man's general direction. It clipped him in the shoulder, and he fell to the ground with a stuttered curse. Unlike his fellow packer, however, he was very much alive when he fell, and he managed to slap the red tile with an outstretched hand.

"FUCK." Reno's pistol was fired once again, and this time, Thorn took the shot in the back of his head.

Somewhere outside the room, shuffling footsteps could be heard, even as the two Turks drew their EMR's and kept their pistols aimed at the doorway. As soon as the footsteps came close to the door, they stopped abruptly, as if the newcomer to the scene knew that someone was in the room already.

"Axel," Reno murmured, "we need to get closer to the doorway."

"But we don't know which side the person is on!"

"He's on the right side of the doorway - there's a shadow there. Big shadow, so it might be Pete."

"How are we going to do this?"

"We'll have to spring him."

"Got it."

Quietly, they began approaching the doorway, using the large piles of cocaine as cover. As soon as they got closer, their noses were assaulted by the pungent stench of alcohol; a sure sign of Pete's presence. Axel approached the wall, and inched towards the doorway-

- only to be knocked back as a thunderous shot was fired cleanly through the thin plasterboard wall and grazed his forearm. His EMR dropped to the ground as his injured arm gave way momentarily, and soon enough, a second shot blasted its way through the wall.

"YOU SONS OF BITCHES!" boomed Pete, even as he let loose with a loud belch. "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?"

"YOU ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION, YOU FUCKING DOUBLE-CROSSER!" shouted Reno, as he fired a shot through one of the massive holes in the wall. "YOU GUYS HAVE A LOT OF NERVE, TRYING THIS BULLSHIT WITH US!"

Pete let out a cry of pain as Reno's shot hit him, and the Turk took advantage of his target's hesitation to step right through the doorway and shoot the alcoholic ferry captain in the forehead. The obese man let out a gurgle of pain as he fell to the floor, a dented old shotgun falling out of his hands. Reno quickly stepped back into the packing room, and saw Axel nursing his wounded arm as he picked up his EMR.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine - he just grazed me."

Out of the blue, the distant sound of several rapid gunshots was heard. However, the sounds stopped almost as rapidly as they had started, and a single gunshot was heard in the subsequent silence. Once again, Reno's walkie-talkie began to vibrate.

Warily, he picked it up, "Yo."

"Reno, we just took Mickey out, but with one casualty."

"What?"

"He had a fucking _submachine gun_ on him! He got Marluxia before his gun jammed and Larxene nailed him in the eye."

They stood there, stunned by the the news which Elena had just delivered.

"We're in the security room now," Elena continued, "and we've got you on camera here... Holy shit, get away from the doorway!"

"What the fuck is going on?" growled Reno, even as he shoved Axel towards the far side of the room.

"You're in the packing room, right?"

"Damn straight," he snapped, only to turn and gape at the doorway as the implication of Elena's words sank in. "FUCK."

"We're on the way!" said Elena brusquely as she terminated the connection.

Before Axel and Reno could make it halfway across the room, the lights abruptly went out, leaving them standing in darkness.

"Dad, what's going on?"

"We've got Amarant coming for us!" hissed Reno, even as he drew a bead on what he thought was the doorway. "Aim at the doorway!"

As Axel struggled to see in the darkness, slow, thumping footsteps could be heard from the corridor. Both Turks tightened their grips on their firearms, even as the footsteps stopped.

"This fucker can see damned well in the dark," whispered Reno. "Be on your-"

There was a terrific bellow, and Reno let out a cry as _something_ slammed into him with frightening force. Axel whirled about blindly, his thumb on his EMR's toggle switch. He hit something in the darkness, and the grunt it let out confirmed its identity. With a snarl, he flicked the weapon's switch and lashed out in the same direction, landing another hit on the shadowy figure and briefly illuminating its face.

A mass of thick, red dreadlocks was all he saw before Amarant clouted him across the face with a massively over-sized palm. Reeling from the force of the blow, he fell to the ground, even as Reno let out a loud curse and began hitting the mercenary with his own EMR. The tussle continued for what felt like an eternity, until there came a sound of a forced exhalation as _someone_ received a hard blow to the abdomen. Time seemed to stop as Axel managed to get to his feet, and heard the thumping of footsteps going _away_ from the scene.

"Amarant, stop!" he shouted, somehow knowing what had happened in the darkness. Muffled shouts came from the corridor, and a loud THUD! was heard in the distance as the fleeing mercenary slammed someone into the walls on his way out. Several gunshots were fired, before silence descended upon the darkened corridors once again.

"Dad? Dad! Where are you?"

"Axel..." came a feeble voice from somewhere in the darkness around him. Axel frantically dropped to his hands and knees, and began searching for Reno. When his hand finally made contact with something warm and _wet_, he immediately scrambled closer to it.

"Dad?"

"Axel..." murmured Reno, even as the lights came to life with a blinding flash. Only then did Axel see the four bloody lacerations on his father's stomach, and the way which his white shirt had been stained a brilliant shade of red by the viciously bleeding wounds.

"RENO! AXEL!" came Elena's voice from the corridor, as she and Larxene ran into the room. The senior Turk paled as she saw Reno's condition. "Larxene, get the trauma kit, NOW!"

Axel struggled to hoist Reno off the ground, while Elena rushed in and pressed her bundled-up suit to the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding, "Dad, hold on!"

"It hurts..." Reno said, his voice sounding softer than it had ever been before. "Axel..."

"Dad, please!" Axel all but pleaded, as he held Reno close and the tears threatened to come.

Larxene ran into the room with their trauma kit in her hands, and with Tseng and a limping Rude hot on her heels. She whipped out a bag of something which Axel couldn't be bothered to identify. As she shoved him aside and began working on the fallen Turk, Elena called for their medical backup.

Before the time came, Axel somehow knew that it was too late for anything to be done.

Reno called out his son's name one last time, as a single tear rolled down his cheek.


	13. Complex

**Complex**

Polished leather shoes sank into the water-saturated earth as soil was thrown into an open grave. The rain had actually stopped some two hours before the funeral itself, but its handiwork remained in the form of a muddy graveyard. Twilight Town's single gravedigger was solemnly filling-in the grave plot, even as a major portion of the mourners made their way home. Only a handful of people remained by the grave's side, and no one had the heart to shoo them off.

After all, they were possibly the closest that the recently deceased had to friends and family. And in the latter case, his own _son_ was actually present.

"... if you need someone to talk to, I'll be around," said Diz softly, as he put a hand on Axel's shoulder.

The red-haired Turk didn't seem to notice the words nor the gesture - his attention was focused entirely on the sight of his father's coffin being covered up beneath six feet of earth. His eyes had lost their former spark, and his hair hung devoid of its usual spikes down over his back due to a lack of attention during the last few days. His suit was pristine as compared to its usual rumpled state, but no one had the heart to comment on it, knowing that Roxas and Elena had spent the better part of three hours getting him cleaned up.

"Axel, maybe we should go," Roxas said softly, as the gravedigger began tamping down the earth over Reno's grave. "Axel?"

"Come, Axel," Tseng said gently. "Let it go."

Axel spun about his heel, and stalked away from the grave without saying a word.

xxx

"- and here we have one of the best interns I have ever had the pleasure of supervising," declared a certain Professor James Hojo, as he led a group of much-despised men in suits into his main laboratory. "Truly, he has the knowledge, the eagerness to learn, and the clinical detachment necessary to one day shine as a man of science!"

"Big words, Hojo," said one of the laboratory's visitors in a flat tone. "Your department's requests for a budget increment are under scrutiny here, so we expect to see proof of all claims."

With a soft hiss, the laboratory's huge doors slid shut and sealed themselves, startling the men. Turning around and looking at the man with a sweet smile, Hojo delivered his next words with some barely-disguised contempt, "Oh, but I _will_ give you all the proof you need. In fact, I shall need a volunteer for this next bit."

The men from ShinRa's accounting department looked around nervously at each other. Visits to the renowned - and at the same time, demented - scientist's laboratory were not exactly the kind of event which sold out their tickets fast, after all. And of course, who could possibly forget what had happened to that unfortunate sap Norris Beltino? That particular stupid douchebag had managed to grievously offend Hojo to the point whereby the good doctor had actually poisoned him somehow. His autopsy had revealed trace amounts of an unknown chemical substance in his blood, which had mysteriously dissipated into nothingness within two days of his death.

Indeed, if there was one person who you didn't want to cross in his natural element, it would have had to be Professor Hojo.

"Volunteer, quickly!" Hojo snapped, bouncing on the heels of his feet. "I don't exactly have all day, you know!"

"Umm, we are aware of the... _nature_ of your demonstrations-"

"Nonsense! You people are _so_ unsporting when it comes to demonstrations... In fact, you have already been shown the effects of my latest research!"

The group of accountants stepped back uneasily. Just what was the mad man on about?

Hojo smirked evilly at them, "There are only seven people in this particular laboratory right now; you five, my intern, and myself. Even as I sealed the door behind you moronic interferences, the air we are breathing was infused with a sufficient dosage of FX-7."

"And what does that do?" asked the head accountant, as he fidgeted where he stood.

Hojo merely glanced at his wristwatch, and hummed, "You should be feeling it's effects in about-"

THUMP.

"- well, now."

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

"Zexion, good job!" Hojo called out, even as he carefully stepped over the limp forms of the five accountants. "Timing was accurate to within the expected range."

"The calculations cannot lie, professor," offered the slate-haired college student, as he moved up to observe the results of their joint handiwork.

"So, you oafs can now see what we've come up with!" sneered Hojo, even as he looked down at the frantically shifting eyes of the money men. "An odorless, colorless paralytic agent. Harmless if you took a small dose of our little antidote of sorts, but... I daresay you five wont be clocking out today. Maybe if five hours you'll be able to make your fingers twitch."

"Just the paralytic agent, professor? I thought we wanted to use the nerve gas on them?"

"Shush, Zexion! We'll save that for the douchebags who keep moving my stuff around; I'm willing to bet that it's that idiotic janitor-"

A soft buzzing interrupted the scientist's rant, causing him to glance at his prized intern with a raised eyebrow. Said intern merely shrugged, and fished his handphone out of his laboratory coat pocket. Upon reading the text message, his one visible eye went wide, and his expression changed to one of extreme panic.

"Professor, I really have to go now!"

"What? Preposterous! We have five subjects here to test for blood pressure, pulse, and the whole shebang!"

"It's _really_ urgent!" he all but pleaded, even as he stepped towards the sealed doors.

"What could possibly be more urgent than this?"

"... I don't know how to say this..."

"It's Demyx, isn't it?"

Zexion's silence was the answer that remained unspoken.

Hojo's mildly surprised look gave way to a vicious scowl, "I thought you were better than the rest of them... Get out of my sight, and leave your ID behind."

"Professor?" Zexion asked hollowly, as his hand reflexively went up to grasp at his ID card. "My ID?"

"You're sacked. Now get out quickly, before the gas leaks out when the doors open; I have more work to do now thanks to your misplaced priorities."

For one moment, time seemed to stand still in the laboratory as the two men stared down at each other. Finally, Zexion took off his ID card, and threw it at his former mentor, even as he turned to open the doors. With a hiss of well-maintained hydraulics, the two doors slid open to let him out, only to shut themselves once he had left the laboratory.

Alone in the room save for his five paralyzed victims, Hojo let out a small sigh, and bent over to pick up Zexion's ID.

"Shame, it was," was all he said before he fed the ID into the waste chute that led to the incinerator.

xxx

Roxas stepped into his dorm room, and hefted his book bag onto his bed. It had been a long day of lectures for him, and all he wanted to do right then was to lie down and have a good nap. But of course, there were those cursed assignments...

Looking at his little bedside chest of drawers for the small 'To Do' list he had tacked there, he saw another note beside the usual one. Curious, he grabbed the little sheet of paper and read the messy scrawls that marked it. Even as his tired-out brain recognized the handwriting, his eyes widened in horror at what had been written down on the note. It took him all of ten seconds to whip out his phone and begin frantically digging through his contacts list, and another five seconds to actually dial the number.

With shaking hands, he raised the phone to his ear, and heard a distinctive ring-tone from the other end of the line. He swallowed thickly, and felt as though his windpipe was being gradually compressed.

At long last, the person on the other end picked up, "Diz's Coffee Shop."

"Diz! I- It's-" Roxas stammered, the link between mind and mouth going haywire out of his desperation. "He's- No!"

"Roxas, calm down," Diz's voice came over the line, maddeningly unruffled, but with a distinct edge of unease to it. "What happened?"

"Call Rufus!"

"Whatever for?"

"Axel... He's gone for revenge!"

Diz remained silent for a bit, and Roxas felt his stomach twisting itself into knots as he waited for the old man's reply.

"I'll take care of Rufus. Do you know where he'll be going?"

"No! That's why we need Rufus!"

"Unlikely that Rufus will know, but I can try. Roxas!"

"Yes?"

"Go to his apartment, and look for clues. He isn't thinking too straight by now, so he probably left a clue or two there."

Even before Diz had finished speaking, Roxas was already sprinting down the dormitory's main corridor.

xxx

A lighter's top was flicked open, and its wheel spun. The flint sparked, and the wick caught on fire. With that done, the lighter now had a cheerful yellow flame flickering out of its business end. The man holding it cupped his other hand over the little device, and began lighting the cigarette held between his teeth. Once it had been lit, he took a long drag from it, and closed his eyes in what appeared to be a state of bliss. Despite the little death-stick being lit, he still kept the lighter open with its small, flickering flame.

"You know... I told myself once that I'll never do this kind of shit," he muttered with his eyes still closed. "I mean... taking hostages? That's the stuff cowards and shitheads do. Not a Turk, oh no. Definitely _not_ a Turkish thing to do."

"But of course, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get the job done, don't you? Maybe the ends justify the means."

Pausing for a moment, he cocked his head to the side, shutting his eyes tighter, "What kind of a fucking proverb is that? 'Do the means justify the ends'? Those damned lecturers got it wrong, yes sir. It's the _ends_ that justify the _means_, my dear lady. Certainly _not_ the other way around."

"And now... we can go on with the show."

At long last, he opened his eyes, and gave his one-person audience a positively bloodthirsty grin. The woman had been tied to a wooden chair and gagged. Tears had left their dirty little tracks across her cheeks, and her voice sounded hoarse through the filthy rag that had been stuffed in her mouth.

Upon seeing the madness reflected in his eyes by the lighter's flame, she tried to scream.

Axel used his free hand to pick up the handphone he had found in her apron's pocket, and dialed the contact whose number was saved under the name 'Sonny'. After a few short rings, 'Sonny' picked up.

"Hello?"

"Well, hello to you too, Red," Axel purred into the phone. "Why don't you come over? I'm sure you know where I am now you overgrown fucktard. See you soon."

Not waiting for a reply, he hung up and threw the phone down onto the floor. Not satisfied with how the phone cracked open, he brought his heel down on it, crushing it beyond further usage.

"Now, Madam Coral..." he said pleasantly, as he took another drag from his cigarette. "I do find myself wondering... just how _did_ you raise such a _bastard_ of a son?"

xxx

Demyx stepped into the ancient-looking train, and took a look at the coach's interior. Being as old as it was, the coach was actually pretty clean and looked rather comfortable. Hauling his luggage over to the luggage compartment at the far end of the coach, he began stowing away his two medium-sized suitcases. Stealing a glance at his watch as he did so, he noted that the train was due to leave in just five more minutes. With a final grunt and push, he managed to pack his luggage away, and shuffled over to his allocated seat. He doubted that it would really make a difference if he sat in a different seat, though; since Midgar's airport had opened with its discounted domestic flights, few people actually bothered to take the night train anymore.

His guitar was sitting on the empty seat next to him, and he allowed himself a small smile for that. The ticketing office had been bewildered when he purchased two tickets, and they had been even more confused when he told them that the extra seat was for a musical instrument. However, since he was a paying passenger, they gave him the second seat at half-price in the end. Sinking down into the surprisingly well-cushioned seat, he let out a small sigh.

A shrill whistle blast was heard, indicating that the train was due to leave in two minutes.

A hundred doubts ran through his mind.

A single hope that his musical career would be made when he arrived at Nobuo Uematsu's studio quashed all of them save for one.

"DEMYX!" came a loud shout from the platform's general direction, startling him out of his reverie. Looking out of the window, he saw Zexion being detained at the platform gate by the burly guard stationed there. "DEMYX!"

Later, when he looked back, he couldn't ever identify the exact reason why he had actually stepped off the train to see Zexion.

Later, when he looked back, he recalled his former boyfriend pleading with him to not leave.

Later, when he looked back, he remembered telling Zexion that between the the slate-haired man's workaholic nature and his own once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he had made his decision.

Later, when he looked back, he could never forget how Zexion had broken down in tears on the other side of the platform gate, even as he boarded the train and left Twilight Town.

For his part, Zexion hadn't seen the tears that he had shed in the train.

xxx

When he heard the front door being broken down, Axel merely sat down on the kitchen counter. Dangling his long legs over the counter's edge, he continued to puff away on his third cigarette for the night. Soon enough, thundering footsteps could be heard moving towards the kitchen, as Amarant made his way to his mother. Axel decided that it was a good thing he didn't have to wait much longer; the smell was getting unbearable.

"Hold it right there, Red," drawled the junior Turk, as he aimed his handgun at the kitchen doorway and flicked the safety catch off. "Can't save your mother if you died now, could you?"

The lanky assassin stood in the doorway, red dreadlocks covering most of his face and masking his expression, "She has no part in this, you imbecile!"

"Oh, but she does," replied Axel, as Amarant tried to step into the kitchen. "And hold it right there, or I'll plant this slug in your chest."

"Try me!" snarled the mercenary, as he entered the kitchen.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The three gunshots sounded like miniature thunderclaps in the small confines of the kitchen. Amarant was thrown backwards, three bloody patches blossoming over his chest even as he unsheathed his infamous knuckle-mounted blades. Axel merely smirked and pointed his gun at the kitchen's window, which the mercenary's mother was propped up against in her chair.

"Armor-piercing rounds tonight, Red. You think I didn't expect you to wear that blasted ballistic vest tonight?"

"FUCK YOU!" growled Amarant, as he lunged towards Axel, blood trickling down his chin.

"Tsk tsk tsk!" chided Axel, as he nimbly leaped out of the way. "Such language, and in front of your _mother!_"

"LET HER GO!" bellowed Amarant, even as he began to stumble while turning to face Axel.

"Not a chance."

With that, Axel threw his lighter at Amarant's mother. The little flame, once nothing more than a flickering fire, soon gave rise to a decent blaze when it landed on the woman's kerosene-soaked form. She screamed in pain through the gag, and Axel leveled his firearm at the window behind her as she began to burn in earnest. The glass behind her took on a grayish coloration as the flames began licking at it, and a spider's web of cracks began to form around the areas where her seat was propped up against it. Muffled screams could be heard, but her gag made any form of clear vocalization impossible.

"Feel my pain."

One gunshot was all that it took to shatter the window, sending the burning woman out into the air. Amarant, bleeding all over the kitchen counter, could nothing but watch as his mother fell out of the eighth floor window. His mouth opened and closed in a silent mask of horror, while his own vision began to dim.

There was a click as Axel flipped the safety catch on his gun back to its standard position, and Amarant saw him reaching for a small fire extinguisher that was sitting in the corner. He put out the remnants of the fire, and walked over to Amarant.

"Like how it feels?" the Turk asked with a manic gleam in his sunken eyes. He brought the fire extinguisher down on the fallen mercenary's wrist, snapping the bones as though they were toothpicks. Before he could use his other hand to make one last swipe at his assailant, Amarant's head was snapped back as the canister was slammed into his face with enough force to break his nose.

Amarant's last wish was that the red-haired Turk would someday see him in Hell.

xxx

Diz put down the phone, and let himself sink into one of the chairs near the counter.

He had just called Rufus about Axel's planned attempt at getting even with Amarant, and had expected bad news. However, the news he had gotten was nothing short of catastrophic. By the time he had gotten in contact with Rufus, the police were already on their way to a certain apartment near Midgar's seventh sector. Somebody had reported that one of the apartments had been broken into by none other than Amarant himself, and that three gunshots had been fired. The emergency line's operator had then heard for herself the fourth gunshot being fired. When the distraught resident had informed the operator that a burning thing had apparently been jettisoned out of the window, the police knew that something seriously screwed-up was happening over there.

From there, things had only gotten worse.

By the time the squad cars had arrived on-scene, all they found were the charred remains of Amarant's mother lying splattered on the sidewalk next to the apartment. When they had actually entered the apartment, they found Amarant's dismembered corpse lying all over the living room. His limbs had been stacked up like logs in front of the television set, and his headless torso was propped up on the sofa. What made the whole scene even more gruesome was the fact that when his head was found in a bucket, it was observed that his genitals had been severed and placed in his mouth.

The messy cuts showed that Amarant's own blades had been used for the bloody deed, and not a single sign of a Turk's presence could be found at the crime scene.

He felt vaguely nauseous at the thought of what Axel had done, and spared a moment to wonder just how everything had gone so wrong. It was almost too much for his age-worn mind to process, and he began to feel somewhat lightheaded. With a trembling hand, he reached for his coffee mug to try and get some of the soothing fluid into his system. Before he could even bring the mug to his mouth, however, a sharp pain flared up in his chest. A powerful spasm tore through his body, sending the coffee mug crashing to the floor.

Diz's vision blacked out, and he fell to the ground in a heap.

xxx

Roxas had just gotten off the train at the ShinRa Tower station when he saw Axel stumbling out of the building. His suit was stained in places with a dark substance that he didn't want to know about, and his facial expression was completely blank.

"Axel!" he ran up to the Turk, who was now doing little more than standing completely still near the fountain in front of the tower. "Axel!"

Axel didn't acknowledge his calls, and let out a startled cry when Roxas hesitantly placed a hand on his shoulder. He jumped terribly, and whirled about to face Roxas.

Backpedaling, Roxas managed to pull himself together to stutter out the Turk's name once again.

"Roxas..." whispered Axel, as he stared blankly at Roxas' face. "I did it..."

"Axel..." murmured Roxas, dreading what he knew was coming. "What did you do?"

"I killed him. I killed his mother. I killed them ALL..." was all Axel said, even as he burst into a sobbing fit and fell to his knees.

Rushing to his boyfriend's side and throwing his arms around him, Roxas barely noticed that Rufus ShinRa and Tseng had actually exited the building and were now standing not ten feet away from them.

"Tseng, call the cops. We'll settle this one."

"And what about Axel?"

Rufus sighed, running a hand through his hair, "Get them inside for now. Hojo can sedate them if need be."

Even as Tseng whipped out his phone and began dialing up Chief Inspector Steiner's number, the distant sound of sirens could be heard.


	14. Epilogue Medley

**Author's Notes: **Wow, it's been a while since I started this one - more than two years, in fact. So now that we've reached the end, I feel that some explanations are in order.

Diz's character in this story was based on an actual coffee shop owner that I knew during my high school days. In fact, several other characters such as Lani and Saix were also based on real people - my teachers, in fact. This story has seen me through one of the most meaningful years of my life, and I have to honestly say that I'm sad to see it end. Alas, everything ends, and nothing is infinite. A character from the ending portion (read - the part about Axel/Roxas) is also based on a real person, who is indeed regarded by some as a living saint. Nobuo Uematsu is an actual person, and the representation as follows below is entirely fictitious.

So, this chapter is meant to wrap things up for good. I'd advise listening to 'Passing Sorrow' by Nobuo Uematsu while reading this last chapter, since the last part is modeled after that song.

The song verses used at the beginning of each part are from the following songs, by the following artistes:

Only Time - Enya  
Cartoon Heroes - Aqua  
Vincent - Don McLean  
Let's Start A Riot! - Blood On The Dance Floor  
21 Guns - Green Day  
How To Save A Life - The Fray  
Speeding Cars - Imogen Heap  
My Console - Eiffel 65

For those who hate songfics... do give it a chance, since I built this chapter around the verses to a certain extent.

Farewell from this story and its characters, and who knows? Maybe we'll meet again someday, in another story, another world.

**Epilogue - Medley**

Diz's funeral had been an unsurprisingly well-attended event. Almost everyone that had ever patronized the old man's shop and which had grown to know him was present, which brought the number of guests to a nifty seventy-five. For the first time in years, the caretakers of Twilight Town's moderate-sized cemetery had to actually dig out some spare seats from the graveyard's storehouse. Not all the mourners were garbed in black - yet another incident which had not been known to occur in recent years.

All the students who had ever found their way to the little food outlet on Metronome street were present. The last group to do so was none other than Twilight Town High's infamous Losers gang - Kairi, Larxene, Namine, Sora, Roxas, Axel, Demyx, Marluxia, Zexion, and Riku . Somehow, no other students from the time-tested high school had made their merry little way to Diz's Coffee Shop since that fateful day when Seifer, Rai, and Fuu had chased them there. Some of them had their parents there, too - Elena and Sephiroth had also been patrons at Diz's during their teenage years.

For some, things had changed for the better in recent times. Elena and Tseng had actually tied the knot, and Sephiroth was confirmed to be dating again - just _who_ he was dating remained a mystery, though. Vincent Valentine and Yuffie Kisaragi were the proud parents of a rather loud pair of twin boys, and Mr. Saix had finally achieved his lifelong dream of replacing Lani Euclid as the most hard-nosed son of a bitch to have ever taught maths in Twilight Town High. As for Lani, doctor's orders ensured that she would never ever teach again after her heart attack, since her temper was just _that_ volcanic. Xemnas, Lexeaus, and Xaldin were all contemplating early retirement from their educational careers after their former schoolmate, Luxord, managed to give them several helpful nudges that landed all four of them considerable windfalls on the stock market.

Quistis Trepe continued to teach English at the school, and still held discussion sessions about controversial issues during her classes. Then, the much-beleaguered counselor, Mr. Magus Merlin, retired at the age of fifty-eight, claiming that thirty-six years of counseling students was enough to last him for a lifetime. Professor Garland Genesis stopped teaching at Twilight Town High when he was offered the position of Vice-Chancellor at Ivalice University, and Professor James Hojo was somehow nominated as ShinRa's employee of the month for the first time in his twenty-year career.

As for Axel and Reno... Suffice to say that since Reno had been killed, Axel had never really been the same. Rumor had it that Rufus ShinRa himself had hushed-up Chief Inspector Steiner, but no concrete proof was ever obtained by the ever-ravenous media corporations. For all its apparent knowledge and glamor, the world of paparazzi remained clueless as to just what had transpired on the night when the notorious Flaming Amarant had been brutally murdered in his dead mother's apartment.

Shortly after Amarant's death, Twilight Town High had sent in a request to the Department of Education for a new biology teacher. According to the official reports, a certain Ms. Garnet Tribal had died of a chronic condition that she had secretly fought for years, thus vacating her position as the school's biology teacher. Her husband, the self-declared 'sexy-tary' at the same school, vanished shortly after her supposed death. The death toll among members of the Midgar underworld began to rise slowly but surely after that. His brother Kuja, who still taught art at the school, also disappeared soon after Zidane's vanishing act.

There were some looks of surprise among the mourners as a black limousine pulled up outside the cemetery, and none other than Yen Sid himself stepped out of the vehicle. After all, Diz's contempt for his former business partner's fast-food franchise was something which he had often declared to his customers (loudly, proudly, and repeatedly, to boot). Nonetheless, the McMoogles founder and CEO made his way to Diz's coffin to pay his respects to the man who had once upon a time opened a coffee shop with him.

Also in attendance was elderly Miss Scarlet who owned the weapons shop down the road from Diz's coffee shop. Few knew that her daughter was none other than ShinRa's very own head of weapons research and that her husband had been six feet underground for close to thirty years. Fewer still knew that she had put him there herself after he tried to raise his hand against her when she was cleaning out a shotgun. What most knew, however, was that she had been Diz's steady companion during their golden years. For a short period of time, there was even a rumor circulating that she had been fucking Diz when he got the heart attack that killed him. Alas, the person who started the rumor had been warded at Twilight Town General Hospital with a gunshot wound in each buttock, and that effectively was the end of the rumors.

For some reason, she stayed behind even after the coffin had been lowered into the ground and buried, leaning heavily on her cane. Hands that were rough and calloused after years of handling firearms gripped the stick's curved handle tight, as she stood all alone by the freshly-filled grave plot.

After some time, she left.

xxx

_Who can say where the road goes_  
_Where the day flows, only time_  
_And who can say if your love grows_  
_As your heart chose, only time_

Miss Scarlet sat in her rocking chair, sipping warm cocoa as she watched the setting sun. The sky was painted with vibrant pink and purple hues, and few clouds were in sight for once. She had contemplated ordering take-out for dinner, but had ultimately decided against it. Instead, she had whipped up an omelet with sliced bacon bits in it, and had washed the tasty meal down with a glass or three of hard liquor.

No sir, she was definitely not a lightweight drinker.

Diz's will had named her as the beneficiary for whatever money he had in his bank account, and she appreciated the gesture for what it really was. He had also left her his treasured photo album with instructions to someday hand it to Rufus ShinRa, though the reason why he wanted her to do such a thing baffled her completely. So the old album remained in her possession since she had picked it up from his solicitor's office.

She hadn't missed that crook of a lawyer's smirk, either - he probably had heard the rumor that she had screwed Diz to death.

If only he had known how wrong he was on the matter. If only _everyone_ knew.

"Diz, Diz," she mused, chuckling to herself. "To think that they thought we'd been together all those years, when you were about as straight as a hula hoop."

xxx

_We are the cartoon heroes, oh_  
_We are the ones who are gonna last forever_  
_We came out of a crazy mind, oh_  
_And walked out on a piece of paper_

All forty-five students fell silent when the door banged open and Mr. Saix stomped into the classroom, his reading glasses wobbling precariously near the tip of his nose.

"Today, I shall be returning the results of last week's pop quiz. Once again, I must say that you turds have all FAILED with flying colors! HAH!"

He didn't receive a response - not that he expected one, anyways. After all, the last student to talk back to him had been sounded halfway into the next century.

"I also have an important announcement to make," he said, tossing the envelope containing their test scripts onto his desk. "But first, I'll need to know how many of you are taking my classes for Geometry 1 and Trigonometry 1."

About eighteen hands went up in response to that question.

"Geometry alone?" Twelve hands.

"Trigonometry?" Fourteen hands.

"Well, I shall be retiring by the end of this week, and I'm sure you're all ecstatic to hear that."

For once, the class remained silent out of shock rather than their usual fear for the blue-haired maniac who taught them mathematics.

"My replacements are standing outside right now, in fact... GET IN HERE, YOU DIPSHITS!"

There came the sounds of a brief scuffle outside the door, and within several seconds a silver-haired man in a rumpled shirt was shoved through the doorway and into the classroom. Moments later, a brown-haired man with blue eyes stepped in, smoothing out the creases on his own shirt. Saix merely rolled his eyes and let out a sigh of resignation upon seeing the results of the duo's antics.

"Yes, these clowns - Mr. Riku for geometry Mr. Sora for trigonometry - are meant to replace me as your mathematics teachers. May god help have mercy on your souls."

xxx

_Starry, starry night_  
_Paint your palette blue and gray_  
_Look out on a summer's day_  
_With eyes that know that darkness in my soul_  
_Shadows on the hills_  
_Sketch the trees and daffodils_  
_Catch the breeze and winter chills_  
_In colors on the snowy linen land_

"... at this rate, it's going to be hard for me to keep squirreling away all this money under tax exemptions."

"I'm sorry, but why can't I just pay the taxes?"

"Namine, Namine," Kairi sighed, while waving her hand dismissively. "Those bastards up at the tax office are already making billions off people like you who don't know better. Trust me when I say that minimizing your tax payments is for the best."

"... this is confusing. How is it that this is legal whereas tax evasion is not?"

"Well, you ARE allowed certain graces and exemptions, you know. And it's all your fault for going commercial while pursuing your degree, anyways."

"How was I to know that that man was an art dealer?"

"He had faggot hair!"

"... how stereotypical can you get? Half of our high school buddies had... faggot hair, as you said."

"Like duh! Sora, Riku, Zexion, and Demyx were all about as straight as bananas! Axel's hair was a nightmare, and Roxas' was probably the closest to normal."

"ANYWAY. So just what am I going to do now?"

"You might want to hire a professional tax accountant."

"But that's YOUR job, Kairi!"

"I'm an accounting major, dear. Lots of tricks of the trade that I haven't picked up yet, duh."

Namine threw her hands in the air out of frustration, "Great, it looks like somehow, I've managed to get myself into a financial tangle by selling off my homework."

"Don't be too flattered - I still think they look like shit."

"Shut up!"

"To quote your dealer, 'They're all... beautiful in being disturbing, and the critics love them for it.'"

"PREPARE TO DIE!" squealed Namine, grabbing her pillow, barely managing to suppress the laugh that was bubbling up from somewhere inside her gut.

With that, a ferocious pillow-fight ensued, that soon spilled out into the dormitory's corridor. It was only when campus security arrived on the scene that Kairi and Namine stopped their shenanigans, both of them out of breath and grinning from ear to ear.

Life was good.

xxx

_Make your move into my room_  
_And I'll whip out my Dr. Doom_  
_(Ow, what the fuck?)_  
_Bitch just shut up and suck!_

The 'Mile-High club' was rather exclusive, since it involved having sex in an aeroplane without getting caught. However, as with most other things in the world, there was a right way and wrong way to go about it, as a rather unfortunate passenger on flight TK-421 discovered.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

"Miss, relax! It was just a jo-"

"A JOKE? A FUCKING JOKE?"

"Miss-"

"DON'T YOU 'MISS' ME!"

"Larxene, calm down," pleaded Marluxia, as he tried to get between her and the passenger who had foolishly made a pass at her. "Just what did he do?"

"HE PINCHED MY ASS!"

Almost immediately, all the other passengers began murmuring amongst themselves and turning around to try and see the face of the supposed molester. They had all been woken up by the furious stewardess' shouts, but had no idea as to what the crazy blond bitch with the antennae was going on about in the middle of the night flight.

"He did what?" Marluxia gasped, whirling about to gape at the man in horror.

"He," growled Larxene, narrowing her eyes. "Pinched. My. Butt."

"Dear-"

With a curious cry, she launched herself at the hapless passenger, and began punching every part of his anatomy that was within her reach - quite a lot of it, really. The man cried out in pain and tried to curl into a fetal ball, occasionally taking some futile swipes at his assailant.

"HELP! MURDER!"

"MURDER? I'LL SHOW YOU MURDER!"

"LARXENE, STOP THIS!"

"BOTH OF YOU STOP IT!" Bellowed the chief steward, as he charged into the business-class section.

"But sir-"

"SHUT UP!" screeched Larxene, as she continued pummeling the unconscious passenger's face into a pulp.

With an angry shout, the chief steward stepped forward and dished out a powerful blow to the side of her head, knocking her off-balance and sending her careening to one side. Before he could do anything else, however, there was a loud CLANG! as Marluxia brought down a metal tray on his head with enough force to bend it out of shape. The large-bodied man swayed on the spot for a while before collapsing to the floor with a thunderous crash.

"Fucking son of a bitch!" snarled Larxene, as she began kicking her superior's unconscious form.

"Larxene, stop-"

"BOTH OF YOU." Boomed an authoritative voice. "STOP RIGHT NOW."

The two of them whipped about to see an air marshal standing not five feet from them. He definitely didn't look pleased, and the taser in his hand only served to drive that fact home.

"Uh-"

"Look-"

ZAP! ZAP! All it took was one shot each, and both of them crumpled to the floor in a twitching heap.

Larxene and Marluxia both ended up being charged with assault and battery, and both of them were given their pink slips shortly after that.

xxx

_When it's time to live and let die_  
_And you can't get another try_  
_Something inside this heart has died_  
_You're in ruins_

"... so tell me again why I should give you the Retlaw scholarship for your degree in chemical engineering."

"Well... I think that my grade-point average is the best among those listed down there, for one."

"Close, but incorrect. I have six others with 4.0 GPA's, so for the last time - tell me what makes you distinct from the other six applicants."

"Professor James Hojo took me on as an intern."

For the first time since the interview started, Ivalice University's dean did not say anything in response to the applicant's words. He was honestly bewildered by the young man's behavior - for someone who obviously wanted the scholarship, he seemed quite content in fencing with the man whose signature would seal the deal. And of course, things were only made more interesting by the fact that the young bugger's mind was as quick as his tongue was sharp. It didn't help that the young man's single visible eye seemed to have a distant, rather unnerving look to it whenever he decided to make eye contact.

"So I've heard," stated the dean. "But I've also heard some other things about you, Mr. Nomura."

"Oh? May I know of them, then?"

"I obviously needed to verify your claims of having worked with the... distinguished professor. So I gave ShinRa's laboratory a call. It took me while to get to Hojo, and he immediately started chewing me out on the line."

"I see."

"And aside from being cursed to heaven, hell, and back, can you guess what Hojo told me when he finally finished with his little tirade?" He noted with some pleasure that his interviewee seemed to be at a loss, for once.

"I... have no idea."

"Professor Hojo," said the dean, "told me that you were the biggest disappointment he had ever seen among his interns. That you had everything within your grasp, but threw it all away on the whims of a rather frivolous emotional attachment."

Zexion remained silent, though he continued to fixate his gaze on the dean. Hell, if he was going to be denied a chance at studying at Ivalice University for his failure in obtaining the scholarship, he was going to at least creep the bastard of a dean out while he was at it. So far, it seemed to be working, too.

"What happened?"

"... I made a mistake. Got my priorities wrong."

"How so?"

"Well... I neglected something that meant the world to me in the name of my curriculum vitae... if only I had known back then that it was worth that much to me."

"So you're saying that you have difficulty in balancing your work and personal life?"

"Nothing of the sort," retorted Zexion, as politely as he could. "I merely got... carried away."

"Carried away?"

"I'm sure you know the feeling, sir - the one that grips you when you stand at the verge of a whole new chapter in your life. The one that clicks into place when everything seems to be going right for once."

"Indeed I do. So... how should I regard your disappointment of your former mentor?"

Zexion shrugged, though his facial expression betrayed the slightest hint of regret for a split-second, "Interpret it however you wish to."

"... but he also said that I'd be a flaming fool to let you go."

That caught him off-guard, "I- I beg your pardon?"

"You're in, Zexion," nodded the dean, as he signed the sheet of paper that certified him as a recipient of the Retlaw scholarship. "Your saving grace was that recommendation from Hojo, so make sure that you don't let me down on this."

xxx

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend_  
_Somewhere along in the bitterness_  
_And I would have stayed up with you all night_  
_Had I known how to save a life_

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and Roxas wasn't going to let it slip by. She came from a far-away land that he only faintly recalled being mentioned briefly during a history lesson. Some called her a living saint, and some claimed that she had healing powers. He had never really been spiritual nor had he followed any religion, but he decided that in the end, he had nothing to lose. Whatever the case might have been, she was his only hope.

After all, it had been years since Axel had spoken a word to anyone besides him.

He was hardly surprised to see that a large crowd had already gathered by the time they got to Sunset Hill. She was known for being an early bird, and so he had hauled Axel out of their apartment at somewhere near five in the morning. Presently, his watch indicated the time to be sometime about seven thirty in the morning, and it was already difficult to get beyond the edge of the observation deck where the saint was supposed to be meditating.

"Axel, come one," he coaxed his partner softly. "She's here."

The former Turk merely followed along in his footsteps as he made his way through the crowd. Reno's death compensation had been enough to ensure that Roxas' part-time job as a programmer was enough to support them both, and so Axel hadn't exactly gone job-hunting after he had been dismissed from the Turks. In his mind's eye, Roxas could still recall the day when Tseng had let him go.

_"Axel, Roxas," Tseng nodded. "Take a seat."_

_The two of them sat down in front of the senior Turk's desk, wondering just what he wanted to speak to them about._

_"I'm sure you realize by now that ShinRa offers considerable compensation deals to the families of deceased Turks. Well, SOLDIER members also get it, but the Turks get a better cut, I think."_

_"Compensation deals?" Axel asked hollowly. "How can you compensate... this?"_

_"Monthly payments of this amount," Tseng said, while scribbling something down on a memo pad, "will be deposited into your bank account. We understand the circumstances behind your father's... passing, and so the company is being unusually generous."_

_When he tore the sheet off and handed it to Roxas, the blond's eyes grew wide. The amount stated there was equivalent to the monthly salary of a middle-class white-collar worker._

_"Ah, I almost forgot - the payments will continue until you gain employment with another company."_

_"Wait, what?"_

_"Axel... has been dismissed from the Turks," said the black-haired Turk softly._

_Said redhead merely stared blankly at his - former - head of department, while Roxas looked horrified._

_"How could you fire him like that?"_

_"Roxas, it was not my decision to make. You KNOW what we do for a living. You KNOW what our jobs involve. Imagine the baggage we have."_

_"Baggage?"_

_"Sometimes, a Turk just... breaks. They see too much, or they go through something that is too traumatic for them to recover from. We cannot risk putting them in such situations ever again."_

_"... so you just dump them?"_

_"Dismiss them, yes. With the option of living out a decent life for the rest of their years, as opposed to possibly going through the same trauma again."_

_"... that's bullshit."_

Axel could only stare at the woman as Roxas led him towards her. Somehow, she had managed to clear the crowds from directly around herself, and had gestured for them to come forward. Garbed in a billowing, shapeless robe, she smiled at Roxas. Her face was lined with wrinkles and her hair streaked with gray, but that one smile reflected a soul which understood why they had made their way to the observation deck that morning.

"Come, child," she murmured with outstretched arms. "Bring him to me... he is in much pain."

"Go, Axel," Roxas whispered, feeling tears welling up in his eyes. "Go."

Obediently, Axel trudged over to the woman, and stopped not three feet away from her. His eyes could have been carved out of emeralds for all the emotion that they showed.

However, that changed when she stepped forward and embraced him. Being nearly two whole feet shorter than him, all she could do was wrap her arms around his chest, but she managed to hug him, nonetheless. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Axel's blank facial expression begin to waver. He glanced down at the woman who was embracing him, and blinked once.

A sob cracked like glass, and he returned her embrace, leaning on her and clinging on for all that he was worth as tears streamed down his cheeks. She didn't seem fazed; rather, her expression was one of sorrow, as though she had taken his emotional burden and made it her own.

"It's alright," she said softly, stroking his back. "It's alright..."

"Let him go, my child... He would not have wanted to see you in this state..."

Axel's tears were subsiding, even as his grip on her shoulders loosened. She slowly released him from her embrace, and nudged him towards Roxas.

"Be with him now," she told Roxas, even as her own voice trembled ever-so-slightly. "And if he ever needs it again, be there with him."

She clasped his hands with her own, and for that one moment in time, Roxas felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders.

xxx

_There, there, baby it's just textbook stuff_  
_It's in the A-B-C, of growing up_  
_Now, now, darlin', oh don't lose your head_  
_'cause none of us were angels_  
_And you know I love you, yeah..._

Thunderous applause filled the concert hall as the orchestra's last notes faded into silence, marking the end of Nobuo Uematsu's last piece for the night. The legendary composer himself was behind the piano, and he waved to the audience as they gave him a major round of applause.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he spoke into the microphone mounted on the piano. "That was my last song for the night, but it will not be _your_ last song for the night."

Excited whispering broke out among members of the audience as they discussed the surprise addition to the concert's list of performances. As per the performance schedule, Uematsu had performed three of his most well-known pieces along with two of his lesser-known works. However, there he was, telling them that he had one more song in store for them.

"I hope it doesn't sound arrogant if I say that I have made my mark in the world of music," he said, eliciting some laughs. "So tonight, I shall be giving another musician a chance at making his big break."

"Once upon a time, there was a lowly music student who was offered a chance at composing some simple musical scores for the Squaresoft corporation. His works were well-received, which eventually lead to a long-time career in the company."

He swept the audience with his bespectacled gaze, noting how they were clinging on to his every word.

"That student was me. And tonight, you shall have the privilege of watching as a star is born. He will be playing one of my older pieces, since he is still exploring his own composing style. His choice of song was... unusual, but he has assured me that he has personal reasons for doing so."

"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my protege, Demyx Kohaku."

Polite applause was heard as the mullet-headed blond made his way towards a stool that had been brought to the center of the stage by a stagehand shortly after Uematsu's last piece had been finished. He fidgeted as he sat down with his guitar, and drew in a deep breath - it was his first time performing in front of such a large crowd, and at the Shimomura recitals, to boot.

"Good evening, everyone," he said softly. "My name is Demyx, and this is 'Passing Sorrow'."

"This one is for... a friend of mine. He meant the world to me but... things changed."

The audience was somewhat distracted by those words at first, but that changed once Demyx's fingers began plucking at the guitar's six strings. As the instrumental's haunting notes resonated throughout the packed hall, they found themselves being drawn into the graceful yet emotional melody. It flowed as smoothly as water, but nonetheless possessed a palpable air of profound sorrow.

Those in the front rows didn't miss the sight of several tears falling onto the guitar as Demyx continued to play.

As he drew close to the song's climax, Nobuo Uematsu himself came to the center of the stage with a flute in his hands. Within seconds, the guitar's rendition of 'Passing Sorrow' was accompanied by the flute's gentle notes. Together, the two of them played through the song's remaining parts in perfect harmony, casting a spell over the already mesmerized audience. When the last notes finally faded away, the audience was completely silent. The two musicians that had taken center-stage merely stayed in their positions, feeling drained by the sheer emotion that had gone into performing that one song.

It took only two more seconds before the silence was shattered by the audience rising to its collective feet for a standing ovation. Nobuo Uematsu placed a hand on Demyx's shoulder, even as he began sobbing in earnest.

The stage, whose lights had already been dimmed, was cut-off from the rest of the world as the curtains closed.

xxx

_We gonna play the game the PlayStation all day_  
_ With Metal Gear Solid to Tekken 3_  
_ And from Omega Boost to Resident Evil_  
_ Just play for the fun_  
_ 'cause we got it going on._

**END**


End file.
